The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
why aren't all 72 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 3 checkable ones are still open, waiting for their date. predictions held up or didn't; assertions are supported or contradicted. on every card: ▮▮▮▮▮ certainty · ▮▮▮▮▮ debate potential. speakers are clickable
Bessent claims a 150-year San Francisco Fed study shows tariffs are disinflationary
“There's a study from not a friend of the administration, the San Francisco fed with a 150 years of data. I would refer everyone to that. That shows that tariffs do not cause inflation, that they're actually disinflationary.”
Bessent reveals U.S. government is taking equity stakes in strategic industries
“If you look at the industries where we are taking stakes and moving forward, we've identified five to eight strategic industries where the U S we have to have endogenous production, or at least adjacent to us in North America or this hemisphere.”
Bessent predicts US will collect at least $300B in tariff revenue over 12 months
“Minimum on a forward 12 month basis, we're going to take in at least three hundred billion dollars in tariff income.”
Bessent aims to reduce U.S. deficit-to-GDP ratio to 3% by 2028
“And I've said that I would, by the time President Trump leaves office, that we would like to have something with a three in front of it, which will stabilize the deficit to GDP, which is an important number, and enable us to start paying down debt.”
Bessent asserts the executive branch has absolute authority to raise trade revenues
“The president has absolute ability or the executive branch has absolute ability through three of ones, two 32 and something called one 22 to raise revenue on trade.”
Bessent describes Bureau of Labor Statistics economic data as problematic
“Look, the BLS is problematic. We've seen that the whole time.”
Bessent claims prolonged Federal Reserve quantitative easing drove economic inequality
“And the fed constant probably kept or definitely kept QE going for too long. And, you know, I called the fed the engine of inequality. And someone said to me, would you believe that the fed is responsible for economic equality in the system. And I said, absolu…”
Bessent: Yellen's Treasury shortened debt duration to suppress interest rates
“Yeah, look, I thought that it, that when rates were low, you're supposed to turn out rates. Exactly. And instead, the Treasury for the past few years has pulled rates in, and I think part of that was to keep rates lower, that they changed the issuance schedule…”
Bessent: Biden-era peacetime spending during economic growth was unprecedented in US history
“Endless spending, but endless spending when we were in, like, solid economic territory, or not in a war, first time ever”
Bessent: Federal spending expanded to 25% of GDP under Biden
“I keep saying the U.S., we don't have a revenue problem. We have a spending problem. Because we are averaging right about 18% revenue. And I'm talking about federal government. Federal government only. We're at about 18%, and Biden administration blew it out, …”
Bessent: Removing SLR constraint might lower T-bill yields 30-70 bps
“So I actually think there's a chance that if we take, it's called the supplementary leverage ratio. If we take that away, it's, it becomes a binding constraint on banks. We might actually pull treasury bill yields down by 30 to 70 basis points.”
Bessent: Government services will not be cut by DOGE efficiency efforts
“Everyone's hearing cuts, and they think their government services are going to get cut. Super important. They're not.”
Bessent: Treasury brought in Hunter Biden whistleblowers to reform IRS audits
“We had a big announcement on Tuesday, and we brought in the two Hunter Biden whistleblowers, who, they have a lot to say about who gets audited, who doesn't. They're gonna be sitting in this building, working on IRS matters, and understanding exactly how these…”
Bessent: Zelensky's Oval Office meeting was biggest diplomatic own goal in history
“Watching President Zelensky do what I thought was the biggest Diplomatic own goal in history.”
Bessent claims 40% of 2024 federal spending happened in Q4
“So last year, 20, 24, 40% of the government spending occurred in the fourth quarter as they had the unsuccessful Or their unsuccessful attempt to convince voters that they weren't in a world of hurt.”
Bessent forecasts $200B to $300B U.S. fiscal contraction for the calendar year
“I forecast that we will have approximately a 200 to three hundred billion fiscal contraction for the calendar year, which is between .71% of GDP.”
Bessent projects U.S. deficit-to-GDP ratio will drop to mid-5% range
“We're gonna end the year with a nominal growth close to six percent. So we will be bringing down the Deficit to GDP. I believe it peaked 6.8% for the calendar year, previous year, and we're going to be in the mid fives”
Bessent says China's rare earth export policy threatened Western trade
“Same thing on October eighth when Beijing announced that they were going to put a worldwide export license on any product that had .1% of Chinese rare earths in it, which would have ground the Western trading system to a halt.”
Bessent predicts U.S. tariff revenue will fall as domestic manufacturing reshores
“So what should happen is over time, tariff income will come down and U.S. Tax receipts will come up, whether it's from factory jobs or more manufacturing, And through higher payroll taxes.”
Bessent predicts declining rental prices will continue to drop
“We are now seeing rents are down about five percent. I think that trend will continue.”
Bessent states real incomes are up 1.8% under Trump administration
“Real incomes are about, up about 1.8% since President Trump took office, and that's back to the Main Street question.”
Bessent claims the Federal Reserve is currently losing $100 billion annually
“And no one told the Fed that you're not supposed to buy high, so. They paid a high, high price for bonds, low interest rates, and their arbitrage, the Fed's losing about a hundred billion dollars a year now.”
Bessent cites MIT study blaming budget deficits for 42% of recent inflation
“And there, there's a very good study from MIT that's come out that shows, you know, in a way that only PhDs at MIT can be very precise. 42% of the great inflation was caused by the budget deficit. Another 17% was caused by the increase in inflation expectation…”
Bessent calls Taiwan's 97% advanced chip concentration the top economic threat
“I believe that the greatest economic threat to the world economy, to the US economy, more than the Arab oil embargo that I lived through in the seventies when I was lined up with my parents to the, at the pump to do odd even days because of the oil embargo, th…”
Bessent: GENIUS legislation could drive trillions in U.S. T-bill demand
“We expect that the Chinese will slowly divest, but the, with the passage of the genius legislation last week, I think that we could see several trillion dollars of demand for T-bills, because the way the legislation works, it, it's under 90 days.”
Scott Bessent foresees global economic reordering within next few years
“I could see in the next few years that we are going to have to have some kind of a grand global economic reordering. There's something on the equivalent of a new Bretton Woods, or if you want to go back, like a treat, something back to the steel agreements or …”
Bessent: US economy did not need rescue in March 2021
“And I would say in March of 21, the economy didn't need rescue, it was already in recovery.”
Trump administration aims to lower federal deficit to historical average by 2028
“We're going to set a goal by twenty-twenty-eight. We want to get back to the long-term average. We're going to deflate it slowly.”
Bessent: Displaced federal workers will be absorbed by the private sector
“Folks who lost their government jobs will be picked up by the private sector.”
Bessent: CBO budget scoring rules drive government spending growth
“It's very gameable, and one of the most gameable parts of it In normal CBO scoring, that, so we, we're calling, we're saying that we want to renew the tax cuts. We're actually just renewing the current tax regime. That, that somehow, after they expire, Then th…”
Bessent: 100% support for Federal Reserve autonomy in monetary policy
“I a hundred percent support the Fed's autonomy in monetary policy.”
Bessent: Failing to pass budget causes largest tax hike in US history
“Everybody recognizes that if we don't get this done, it's going to be the biggest, it's pass fail. It's the biggest tax hike in history.”
Bessent: 25% of US GDP flows within 10 miles of Washington, DC
“Within a 10 mile radius of here, 25% of the GDP of the U.S. Pulsates through here.”
IRS maintains same help desk staffing on Christmas Eve as April 14
“There's one very large department that everybody deals with on April 15th, that their help desk is fully staffed 24 seven, 365 days a year. They have the same number of people on Christmas Eve as they have on April 14th.”
Bessent states the US government will not revalue its gold reserves
“I can say today, we're not revaluing the gold.”
Bessent considers federal backstop for California insurance tied to safety mandates
“So is there something we could do where you put another layer of private money in there, and then the federal government is the fifth risk. Traunch. But if the federal government comes in, can we mandate down here proper hygiene?”
Bessent accuses Biden administration of targeting hybrid vehicles
“But this administration had a jihad on hybrids, because they're, it, they didn't pass the purity test.”
Bessent: US must lower energy prices to compete without suppressing labor
“Yeah, I mean, we're not going to crush labor like China and some other countries have done, so we gotta crush the energy price.”
Bessent: Financial markets act like biology, not precise math or physics
“The economy, the markets are biology. They're not math. They're not physics. They're nonlinearities. They're very complex systems. They're mutations in the system. And this idea that we can have this decimal point certainty is just absurd.”
Bessent: Half of U.S. community banks vanished since 2008 crisis
“About half of them have disappeared since the GFC.”
Bessent notes 80% to 90% of U.S. pharmaceutical precursors originate overseas
“80, 90% of the precursor chemicals that go into U.S. Pharmaceuticals are made overseas. Majority in China or India.”
Bessent predicts U.S. households will receive $1,000 to $2,000 Q1 tax refunds
“And I can see that we're going to have a gigantic refund year in the first quarter because no one chains their working Americans did not change their withholding. So I think households could see depending on the number of workers, 1002 thousand dollar refunds,…”
Bessent claims Susan and Michael Dell are contributing $6.25B to Trump accounts
“Philanthropists like Susan and Michael Dell, We're going to put in 6.25 billion dollars to top up the accounts”
Bessent: Biden-era deficit hit 6.7% of GDP, a peacetime record
“The budget deficit, which was running about 6.7% of GDP under the Biden administration, highest, highest that we'd ever had when we weren't at war or in a recession”
Bessent: AI boom highly likely to spur non-inflationary economic growth
“With AI that we can go back to the paradigm When I was younger, in the nineties, Alan Greenspan was able to run the economy very hot in the nineties, and because, you know, it was the IT boom, and we had this very powerful non-inflationary growth, and I think …”
Bessent: AI CapEx spending is roughly 1% of US GDP or $300B yearly
“We estimate that that is approximately one percent of GDP a year. So, three hundred billion dollars. That's being spent on AI.”
Bessent: Tariffs and tax incentives could spark U.S. construction boom
“I think we could have this massive construction boom And then the factories get populated, and part of President Trump's one big beautiful bill, the most powerful part of that is the hundred percent immediate expensing of equipment, and we also did it for fact…”