Policy analyst for @CatoInstitute covering the federal fisc. Fan of struggling causes (limited government & Buffalo Bills).
United States
- Tweets 13,330
- Following 84
- Followers 5,628
- Likes 89
Pinned Tweet
Pleased to announce that I will be joining @RominaBoccia's budget team at @CatoInstitute later this week!
I'm glad to be joining an outstanding organization that fights for American founding ideals such as limited government and free markets.
11
7
71
6,415
David Ditch retweeted
"You might think ensuring that Obamacare enrollees are real people would be a bipartisan cause, but these days there can be no reduction in the rolls — no matter how legitimate — without demagoguery."
@PostOpinions
washingtonpost.com/opinions/…
2
15
67
6,692
David Ditch retweeted
Delaying Social Security reform would spare politicians difficult choices today while leaving taxpayers with a much larger bill tomorrow.
cc: @RominaBoccia
thedailyeconomy.org/article/…
2
5
219
I know it's really enjoyable to dunk on Congress, but we have curtailed legislative branch resources for decades and crippled its institutional capacity. If we want better results we need to change course.
Today I learned that House subcommittees used to have 10-15 staff and be much more independent to drive policy.
1
6
19
2,116
Higher interest rates would add $1.5 trillion to deficits over 10 years and reduce long-term GDP growth by 0.1% per year (a big friggin' deal).
CBO responds to a request for an analysis of projected deficits and debt under a scenario with higher interest rates and a scenario with a constant debt-to-GDP ratio. cbo.gov/publication/62758
1
3
327
David Ditch retweeted
The misuse of this BLS data to spread doomerism about declining worker welfare, billionaire enrichment, or economic injustice is not new.
Decline in workers’ share of output is largely a reflection of the fact that capital income is a residual of many different things. 🧵
4
9
32
3,555
CEI put on a tremendous event tonight, but I did worry about the wisdom of setting a giant Teddy Roosevelt loose in a room full of libertarians.
An extraordinary evening. Thank you to Donald J Boudreaux, @MickEbeling at @NotImpossible our keynote speaker, and @lmchervinsky our incredible Mistress of ceremonies for an amazing 2026 Julian L Simon Award dinner. Thank you to all who joined us as we redefine the possible. Simonlegacy.cei.org
14
737
David Ditch retweeted
These results from @BudgetModel make sense. Nice to put numbers to a range of tax and benefit adjustments to address social security insolvency. Another option I'd like to see from this model is eliminating the payroll tax exclusion for employer-sponsored health insurance (ESI).
2
1
13
1,004
"...pouring more money into the same agencies and channels is unlikely to deliver better results."
Bingo, yet "pouring more money" is what the administration wants Congress to do.
The Philly TRACON outage is a reminder that the problem is not just ancient FAA equipment that breaks—it’s the entire obsolete U.S. air traffic control model.
My latest at @ReasonFdn ⬇️
1
402
One might be tempted to joke that the law is an ass, but in this case the problem is an extralegal doctrine (qualified immunity) giving government officials a degree of impunity that would shock America's founders.
A Georgia officer shot and killed a baby donkey on its owner's land, and qualified immunity will likely shield him because no prior case matches. No one should need a matching precedent to vindicate their rights, writes Cato's @foxmike90.
ow.ly/xrjl50ZQE9H
1
4
462
I posit that the cause was interest rates not rising when debt and deficits took off in 2008, temporarily removing the short-term cost to fiscal irresponsibility.
(The short-term costs eventually returned, and long-term costs never went away)
1
3
237
Keep this in mind when seeing outrage about people losing coverage. Federal outlays for healthcare often have little bearing on people receiving healthcare due to problems such as fraudulent enrollment.
🔥BREAKING: I just learned how common-sense the @CMSGov actions were to remove phantom enrollees in federal exchange states.
Here is what they did. And this should not be controversial in any way, unless you support fraud, sending billions of dollars to insurers on behalf of phantoms, and large taxpayer-financed commissions for unscrupulous brokers who made things up on applications, including creating fake applicants.
First, enrollees had to meet 4 criteria: 1) have an application submitted by an agent or broker that lacks a Social Security number or immigration number; 2) have no record of actual contact with the insurer; 3) pay $0 in premiums themselves (meaning taxpayers paid 100% of the premium); and 4) have NO medical claims. Of note, the combination of these factors is a red flag for a potential phantom enrollee.
Second, assuming those 4 criteria were met, the insurer sent the enrollee two forms of notice and gave them 30 days to respond.
Third, if there was no response, CMS determined the enrollment to be unauthorized, and it was canceled. (Of note, insurers have large incentives to get in touch with the enrollee to keep that subsidy payment flowing.)
IMPORTANT DETAIL THAT SAFEGUARDS LEGITIMATE ENROLLEES: CMS has a safeguard in place. If a legitimate enrollee was affected, they can contact the call center, provide a verified Social Security number, and be reinstated.
5
402
David Ditch retweeted
And the Penn Wharton @BudgetModel analyzes Social Security reform plans, finding that benefit-reduction reforms result in dramatically higher GDP (and lower debt/GDP ratios) than tax-increase plans.
Social Security is big enough to affect the entire economy. Which means that, when we think about how reforms will affect debt/GDP ratios, we need to think about the denominator as well as the numerator.
budgetmodel.wharton.upenn.ed…
🚨NEW: CBO Projects Social Security Nearing Insolvency
Social Security’s retirement trust fund will be insolvent by mid-2032, according to the latest projections from the @USCBO, the same year Social Security’s Trustees are expecting insolvency.
In the first year after insolvency, CBO projects retirees will face a deep 26% benefit cut, rising to 40% by the end of the century. Assuming policymakers reallocate funds from the financially stronger disability fund, the theoretically combined funds would still run out by 2033, and beneficiaries would still face a 23% cut.
Learn more here🔗crfb.org/blogs/cbo-projects-….
10
11
33
5,736
David Ditch retweeted
Failing public schools are not underfunded. They get too much money.
I visited the school where the founder of the 1619 Project sent her daughter to prove it.
The reality is that educational problems are due to lack of competition, teacher unions, and parent involvement.
NEW: We visited PS 307, the failing public school that Nikole Hannah-Jones sent her daughter to.
The teachers make an average of over $100,000 a year. The school spends $52,000 per student each year. The student/teacher ratio is 9 to 1.
We went to another school just down the street that spends less than half of what PS 307 does—yet the academic outcomes are significantly better.
Underfunding and racism aren't causing schools to fail. @DanielDiMartino explains what is:
17
62
340
15,180
David Ditch retweeted
This is one of those facts that conservatives and libertarians in ed policy circles know, and no one else does.
Note: we point this out frequently to reporters but it never seems to make it into the articles.
Reminder: US schools serving low-income and non-white communities get more money per pupil not less and have for a long time
14
154
783
35,337
David Ditch retweeted
A thread to unpack @Paragon_Inst's work on the Great Obamacare Enrollment Fraud to provide perspective on the extent of the improper eligibility problem in the Affordable Care Act (ACA) exchanges and the need for these @CMSGov reforms. 1/6
Exclusive: Vice President JD Vance’s antifraud task force is set to remove hundreds of thousands people from the Affordable Care Act’s public exchanges, saying those enrollees don’t meet eligibility requirements or don’t exist at all on.wsj.com/4dSTFSH
3
10
19
2,425
David Ditch retweeted
Cutting fraud and corporate welfare are popular. As is requiring able-bodied, working-age adults to work to receive welfare
The fake narrative of 'cuts' articulates TPs from the medical industrial complex & ignores the surge of federal health care spending and fraud under Biden
As @axios notes this morning, this is very much a health care election. Both Democrats and Republicans are attacking the health care industry, but many Republicans have the political baggage of votes to cut Medicaid and opposition to enhanced ACA subsidies.
@CookPolitical
4
7
15
2,406