Representative appearances

• Economic Shocks Loom As Iran War Escalates

  Guest on the episode, President of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, discussing fiscal policy and defense spending.

• Trump Says He's Disappointed in NATO | Balance of Power: Early Edition 3/17/2026

  President of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget; guest on the show.

• Trump Says He's Disappointed in NATO | Balance of Power: Early Edition 3/17/2026

  President of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget; guest interviewed on fiscal policy and war costs.

• Bloomberg Surveillance TV: December 3rd, 2025 | Bloomberg Surveillance

  Maya McInness of the Committee for the for responsible federal budget writing despite all of the promises made on deficit reduction in 2025. We're heading into 2026 with a little to show as far as fiscal improvements. Maya can join us now. Maya, thank you so much for being with us. I want to start with what you make of the recent discussions of the AIPA case in front of the Supreme Court of potential uh companies clawing back some of the revenues that they paid to the United States. Are you taking that seriously as a potential hit to revenues otherwise have been penciled in? Absolutely. I think everybody should be taking seriously the potential that there's going to be major shifts on what happens with the tariff revenue both going forward and potentially if some of that money has to be paid back. Listen, I am I have no legal expertise at all, but having talked to many people, I'm less concerned that people are going to have to pay it back, which would be immensely disruptive to companies and distortive to the sense that you can make negotiations on foreign policy and economic policy. But I do think it's likely that they will find that those tariffs are illegal in their present structure. The tariffs are projected to raise about $2.5 trillion over the next decade and reduce the debt by as much as three trillion because of interest savings. This would be a huge hit to the fiscal picture which is already in deep deep trouble. So I think one of the big questions is if we do find that that tariff revenue doesn't remain in place and let's be honest it's unlikely to remain in place in the current structure no matter what because the president enjoys changing those tariffs around. But if they are uh pulled back and unable to go as planned, we should be thinking about a smarter, more efficient, more progrowth revenue approach that would replace them so we wouldn't lose all of that money and make the deficit even worse. Maya, when it comes to potentially what can get done by the end of the year, what are you hearing and what do you think it's going to do to the fiscal picture if there is an extension of the Obamacare health credits, the enhanced? Mhm. This was a really interesting part of the discussion about how to open the government, which was the big ask uh was that we we in we extend the subsidies for Obama healthcare. And that would have all told cost $350 billion. You'll notice there was not a single discussion of how we might offset those costs. So again, here's another plan that would increase the deficit. We're not going to see them extended permanently and so the cost will be less because it will only be for a few years. Um there's some chance that this will happen for one or two years before the end of this year, but I think it's likely, it seems as though the uh momentum for getting this done is starting to slow down. But to your point, no matter what happens at the end of this year, we'll either see nothing which will just keep a very bad fiscal picture in place or there is a possibility that there'll be a trade and a worsening of the fiscal picture. Let's extend those subsidies. And it's no comment on the policy. They might be a smart policy, but nobody's talking about how to offset them. But there might be a trade where you extend them unpaid for for other policies that are also unpaid for, which is often what happens in that Christmas tree fiscal rush at the end of the calendar year. Well, when it comes to these enhanced subsidies, this was at, as you mentioned, the heart of a government shutdown. Have you any seen any impact that is going to be long-term of a government shutdown on the fiscal health of the United States? The government shutdown itself will not have an overall massive fiscal impact. There is a slowing in spending during that period and it take a small hit on GDP usually which is made up in the following months. So we usually just see a shift of growth and overall effects, fiscal effects from the shutdown. What it does do is uh causes us to be a laughingstock around the world when our government can't keep the lights on. Really, it is it is a punchline and it is a huge sign of inability to govern at the most basic level and it presents weaknesses and sort of a distraction from the bigger issues that are going on around the globe right now. So I think any country that's not allied with aligned with the US looks at us and says they can't get their act together and our allies are a little bit concerned too. So I would say it has far more kind of global foreign policy ramifications than it does on the actual bottom line which is more of a shift of when money is spent. There'll be small savings in the short term but they'll be pushed out into the subsequent months. My a lot of people have said look this could have been said for a long time. We've had an irresponsible fiscal budget deficit for quite a while. It has gotten worse, but right now markets are not freaking out. In fact, we have a whole host of different projections for 2026 coming out of Wall Street expecting a bias to lower yields by the end of next year, even on the longer denominations. Why do you think the market hasn't been particularly concerned even with everything that you're laying out? Yeah, I mean this is a longterm challenge the fiscal situation because it's not in the US about oh we might have a fiscal crisis in the immediate short term because we are the reserve currency because countries around the world and savers domestically want US treasuries there are lots of reasons that rates don't pop up immediately what it is is a slowing kind of erosion of our role in the world and faith in the US and so that when there is kind of a moment of reckoning it will be so much harder to we will have 10 trillion 20 trillion more in debt than we would have if we had gotten ahead of the problem. That's one big issue. The second issue I'd say is markets aren't the best predictors of when things turn bad. There's a lot of kind of frothy optimism that comes out of markets momentum that's built in it and it's almost like a bubble. Many people understand the most people understand the fiscal fundamentals of the US are nothing short of terrible. But that doesn't mean there isn't money to be made in the short term as long as things kind of continue with the momentum they currently have. And when it comes to timing, people don't want to pull money out of the market or make abrupt changes too quickly. Uh so there's a a refusal to acknowledge that the fundamentals are bad and hope that kind of the topline numbers will continue to look good for as long as possible. Stay with us. More Bloomberg surveillance coming up after this.