Policy analyst for @CatoInstitute covering the federal fisc. Fan of struggling causes (limited government & Buffalo Bills).
United States
Joined August 2011
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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.
David Ditch retweeted
Good article about how China has gone massively into debt and kicked millions of people off their property to build pointless bridges and underused airports and high-speed trains so that gullible people on websites like this one think communism is cool.
economist.com/china/2026/10/…
David Ditch retweeted
María Corina Machado's return fundamentally alters the dynamics of Venezuelan politics and exposes the flaws of delaying a transition to democracy, says Cato Institute Vice President for International Studies @VasquezIan.
ow.ly/j8Nr5102iX8
David Ditch retweeted
"The California High-Speed Rail Authority was established in 1996 and, 30 years later, oversees as many miles of operational railroad as The Post does, which is zero."
@PostOpinions
washingtonpost.com/opinions/…
David Ditch retweeted
🧵Welfare Digest Today:
• Cost-Sharing Requirements Prompt Arizona SNAP Reform
• USDA Moves to Strengthen SNAP Integrity
• Fraud in DC’s Medicaid Community Support Program
• Guaranteed Income Lowers Lifetime Work Earnings
👇
David Ditch retweeted
Wasteful nonsense from a wasteful project.
Stuff like this is why people don't trust government.
How to get more trust: be trustworthy. It's that simple.
Breaking News: The chief executive of California’s High-Speed Rail Authority has abruptly resigned after a recent state report that found that the agency had misused nearly $600,000 to pay for the travel of consultants. This is a developing story. nyti.ms/4zoacHi
David Ditch retweeted
Retired millionaires do not "warrant" the benefits they receive. To claim a senior citizen deserves, or "earned" their benefits is to deny a worker's right to his income. It is to say the idle elderly rich have a stronger claim on young people's labor than they do themselves.
I think this is mostly reasonable although the top quintile of seniors did pay enough to warrant the benefits they receive and I don't see how they have any more responsibility than anyone else for a program that was created 90 years ago and has been headed for this end for decades. (Indeed, it's unlikely a group that large probably has a close to uniform position on anything.) Nevertheless, avoiding real hardship will have to involve some benefit reductions and that won't work for lower income retirees. And it will involve some revenue, but raising the cap is a very bad idea for the economy. Everyone is going to have to give up something. FDR famously said no one could end "my social security" because politicians wouldn't want to leave anyone holding the bag.
Total Boomer Luxury Communism: state & local government edition.
New data out from @ReasonFdn on state and local government finances.
About half of state and local long-term debt is unfunded liabilities for retirement benefits for government workers.
$4.4 billion 10-year cost, but in textbook fashion they have a $7.8 billion cost in the first half of the window and back-load the offsets. Making deficits worse now is a really bad idea!
Subsidies for ethanol production and a delay of a SNAP reform drive the costs.
Estimated Budgetary Effects of S. 5526, the Agricultural Act of 2026
cbo.gov/publication/62881
David Ditch retweeted
Great charts in this new @PostOpinions piece on the relationship between permitting, housing construction, and rents.
Tl;dr: the longer THEY take, the more YOU pay. washingtonpost.com/opinions/…
OBBBA's Medicaid reforms were imminently reasonable and undoing them would be a huge blow to fiscal responsibility.
To meet those horrendous Medi-Cal work requirements being imposed by the "One Big Ugly Bill", beneficiaries will have to work no more than 34 hours in one month out of any six. They can also study, train, volunteer, or lie about doing so. californiapolicycenter.org/t…
David Ditch retweeted
The Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC) has evolved from a tool to simply cut and track checks for farm bill programs to a source of nearly unrestrained administrative power. With more than $40 trillion in debt, taxpayers can no longer afford it. taxpayer.net/agriculture/the…
I vividly recall criticism of the F-35 when I was a fresh-faced hill staffer in 2013. Some things never change.
With what’s happening in Ukraine, this 2016 (!) piece remains pertinent: cato.org/commentary/era-chea…
This quoted post is unavailable.
David Ditch retweeted
Switzerland succeeds despite its wealth tax, not because of it. Its government spends less, and low taxes on investment offset the wealth tax’s damage. The lesson for the United States is to spend and tax less, writes Cato’s @adamnmichel.
ow.ly/YTcR5100i4b
David Ditch retweeted
New @UChicago study: a federal ultraprocessed food labeling mandate would cost more than $14B annually, which would largely be recovered through (surprise) higher grocery bills.
David Ditch retweeted
Except it’s not.
Social Security is NOT mandatory retirement savings.
It’s a welfare program with expansive eligibility.
It has a progressive benefit calc and a means-testing tax part, and still transfers too much money from younger working families to wealthier retirees.
First place AZ only scored 70.8%. Drops below 50% at 28th place (WY), plunges to 31.9% for NY and 29.2% for HI. Lots of room for improvement at the state level.
Blue states can be a lot more progressive FOR FREE by fixing this: cato.org/freedom-50-states/2…
Where does your state rank? The 2026 edition of "Freedom in the 50 States" measures economic and personal freedom across all 50 states.
Check the rankings at the link: ow.ly/m13K51007Em
It is worth noting that most of the changes enacted last year are not in effect. However, from the tone of reporting one would think that the program has been eviscerated rather than tweaked at the margins.
Federal Medicaid spending is up 8% from FY 2025 to FY 2026.
@MarcGoldwein, @mfcannon, @larry_levitt - where are the cuts?
issuesinsights.com/2026/10/2…
David Ditch retweeted
Social Security's financial problems are usually blamed on demographics: longer lives and fewer children.
But that overlooks another major culprit: unsustainable benefit design.
New piece for the Wharton Pension Research Council blog 🧵
“I would almost compare it to economic bumper bowling,” said David Ditch, a policy analyst at the Cato Institute. “A favorable treatment that really no other industry is provided.”
"American farmers don’t need Washington to guarantee them a profit," the Editorial Board writes.
"They need Washington to stop making it harder for them to earn one." wapo.st/4hZGKkE
