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Normally we would rather dunk our heads into a massively clogged fraternity house toilet than listen to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent talk about literally anything. Finance? No. Trade? No. The right wine pairing for sauteed sea bass? No. The proper way to tie a Windsor knot? Lord no.
We don’t even want to listen to him talk about stuff we care about, like beer or when the Red Sox should call up Marcelo Mayer.
But it was at least a little interesting to watch Bessent being interviewed by Fox News anchor Bill Hemmer Friday morning. Not because Hemmer is a great interviewer – we have socks that have more personality – but because he asked Bessent a direct question about the House budget bill blowing out the national debt that Republicans like to claim is going to eat all our grandchildren, and you could practically see Bessent’s brain scrambling to shove soothing words to his mouth.
HEMMER: You mentioned economic growth there during your comment there. This bill adds trillions to our debt. How is that acceptable to this administration?
BESSENT: Well, a-again, uh (clears throat) you’re referring to the CBO scoring, I believe, which is ten-year scoring, and it’s DC-style scoring. (almost cracks smug grin so he looks like the Cheshire Cat with expensive hair plugs)
The other name for “DC-style scoring” is math. The Congressional Budget Office is doing that sneaky Swamp trick known as math.
Yes, the CBO uses a ten-year window when scoring budget bills because the Senate’s Byrd Rule limits the amount that a bill being passed through reconciliation can add onto the national debt. Bessent, shockingly, never explains why this is bad, and they should be scoring with … what, an infinity-year window?
He went on:
“We think that we can both grow the economy and control the debt. What is important, Bill, is that the economy grows faster than the debt. … What is the total debt to GDP? Because we can grow our way out of this. If we change the growth trajectory of the country, of the economy, then we will stabilize our finances and grow our way out of this.”
And Democrats get yelled at for being too wonky for the common man. But here is the Secretary of the Treasury in his monotone that makes him sound about as sincere as Donald Trump telling his children he loves them.
The writer Jonathan Bernstein noted that Bessent’s performance on Fox News was not about conning the voters, who are going to notice when they can’t get their Social Security checks on time and hospitals close due to lost Medicaid funding. It’s about conning Congress and themselves.
But we still think The New York Times should quote Bessent to customers on its next diner safari and see how they react, because we think it is a little bit about conning voters and we like the image of a mob standing outside the home of a smug guy worth half a billion dollars and waving pitchforks and torches in his direction.
It is silly to say that the US can “grow our way out of” whatever “this” is. Economies expand. Economies contract. It’s the natural order. There is no such thing as infinite growth, no matter how many CEOs tell their shareholders otherwise. This is just trickle-down economics, which this country has tried multiple times before and has blown out the deficit and the debt on it multiple times before.
Bessent was also asked about President Tariff Otaku’s post early Friday morning that he’s going to slap a 25% tariff on iPhones if Apple keeps making them overseas. Hemmer pointed out that even if Apple brings production to the United States, such a transition can take a long time. You have to site a factory, build it, train the workers, and so on. This is a years-long process, and at the end of it, iPhones will be twice as expensive and people will buy way fewer of them.
On the other hand, if you slap a huge tariff on imported iPhones, they will also be twice as expensive and people will buy way fewer of them. This is a dilemma that Bessent and Trump and their entire economic team just glide past every time they are asked.
Anyway, Hemmer asked Bessent what’s a “realistic” timeframe for Apple to move all its production to the US. The Treasury Secretary responded that he “doesn’t know from company to company, so we’ll have to see.” This strikes yr Wonkette as simply another corruption opportunity. If Tim Cook buys up a boatload of Trump’s memecoin, will Trump turn around and give him all sorts of subsidies right out of the treasury to make the move? Sure, why not. Now repeat that for dozens of companies and see how it goes.
Hit those Memorial Day sales now, folks. Lord knows if businesses will be able to afford to hold them next year.
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