Shows / The Fiscal Policy Podcast with Fexingo: Government Budgets, Stimulus, and Public Spending
The Fiscal Policy Podcast with Fexingo: Government Budgets, Stimulus, and Public Spending
Lucas and Luna dissect the machinery of public finance — how governments borrow, spend, and tax — without the political theater. Each episode examines a single fiscal lever: a stimulus check's ripple through consumer debt, the bond market's reaction to a budget deficit, or the real cost of infrastructure spending. Lucas traces the Treasury's cash flows with a fountain pen across an abstract budget breakdown, while Luna presses on the human outcomes: which households actually benefit from a…
Episodes
The Fiscal Policy Podcast with Fexingo: Government Budgets, Stimulus, and Public SpendingWhy Government Data Centers Are 40 Percent Empty
Episode 49 of The Fiscal Policy Podcast with Fexingo examines why government data centers run at just 60 percent utilization on average, wasting billions in…
- The Fiscal Policy Podcast with Fexingo: Government Budgets, Stimulus, and Public Spending
Why the Government Spends Billions on Unused Software Licenses
The federal government spends over $3 billion annually on software licenses it never opens — and state and local agencies add billions more. Lucas and Luna dig…
- The Fiscal Policy Podcast with Fexingo: Government Budgets, Stimulus, and Public Spending
How One City Fixed Its Pension Crisis
Episode 47 of The Fiscal Policy Podcast with Fexingo looks at how one American city dug itself out of a pension funding crisis without cutting benefits or…
- The Fiscal Policy Podcast with Fexingo: Government Budgets, Stimulus, and Public Spending
Why the Federal Government Pays More for Light Bulbs
Episode 46 of The Fiscal Policy Podcast digs into a seemingly small but staggeringly wasteful line item: the price the US government pays for standard light…
- The Fiscal Policy Podcast with Fexingo: Government Budgets, Stimulus, and Public Spending
Why Your Tax Dollars Fund Empty Office Buildings
In this episode of The Fiscal Policy Podcast, Lucas and Luna dig into a specific and costly problem in public spending: the federal government's sprawling…
- The Fiscal Policy Podcast with Fexingo: Government Budgets, Stimulus, and Public Spending
How School Districts Waste Millions on Unused Bus Routes
Every school day, thousands of yellow buses crisscross American neighborhoods — but many are running nearly empty. In this episode, Lucas and Luna dig into a…
- The Fiscal Policy Podcast with Fexingo: Government Budgets, Stimulus, and Public Spending
How Government Debt Auctions Set the Price of Borrowing
Episode 43 of The Fiscal Policy Podcast dives into the mechanics of government debt auctions, using the US Treasury's recent May 2026 ten-year note sale…
- The Fiscal Policy Podcast with Fexingo: Government Budgets, Stimulus, and Public Spending
Why Minnesota Created a Public Option for Generic Drugs
In May 2026, Minnesota launched the country's first state-run generic drug manufacturing program, aiming to break monopolies on price-inflated generics…
- The Fiscal Policy Podcast with Fexingo: Government Budgets, Stimulus, and Public Spending
How One City Taxed Itself Into a Recession and Back Out Again
When a mid-sized American city tried to balance its budget by raising property taxes, it accidentally triggered the fastest local economic contraction since…
- The Fiscal Policy Podcast with Fexingo: Government Budgets, Stimulus, and Public Spending
How Government Pension Funds Are Dumping Active Managers
Episode 40 of The Fiscal Policy Podcast examines a quiet revolution in public pension fund investing: the shift from expensive active fund managers to low-cost…
- The Fiscal Policy Podcast with Fexingo: Government Budgets, Stimulus, and Public Spending
Why Government Procurement Costs You More
Episode 39 of The Fiscal Policy Podcast with Fexingo digs into government procurement — why public agencies routinely pay two to three times more than private…
- The Fiscal Policy Podcast with Fexingo: Government Budgets, Stimulus, and Public Spending
How Argentina Broke Its Inflation Addiction in 18 Months
Argentina was the world's most stubborn inflation story — annual price growth above 200 percent, a currency that lost half its value every year, and a…
- The Fiscal Policy Podcast with Fexingo: Government Budgets, Stimulus, and Public Spending
How the Government Pays More for Office Supplies Than You Do
Episode 37 of The Fiscal Policy Podcast dives into the absurd world of government procurement: why a simple box of paper clips can cost the federal government…
- The Fiscal Policy Podcast with Fexingo: Government Budgets, Stimulus, and Public Spending
How One State Audit Found 6,000 Ghost Employees on the Payroll
When California's state auditor ran a computer match of employee IDs against payroll records in 2025, the result was stunning: over 6,000 people were…
- The Fiscal Policy Podcast with Fexingo: Government Budgets, Stimulus, and Public Spending
Why Governments Borrow Trillions at Auction Like Clockwork
Episode 35 of The Fiscal Policy Podcast dives into the machinery of government debt auctions. Lucas and Luna explain how the U.S. Treasury sells over $5…
- The Fiscal Policy Podcast with Fexingo: Government Budgets, Stimulus, and Public Spending
Why Government Off-Balance-Sheet Entities Hide a Trillion-Dollar Problem
Episode 34 of The Fiscal Policy Podcast with Fexingo takes you inside the shadowy world of government off-balance-sheet entities — the public corporations…
- The Fiscal Policy Podcast with Fexingo: Government Budgets, Stimulus, and Public Spending
Why Governments Keep Borrowing at the Short End
Episode 33 of The Fiscal Policy Podcast explores why government treasuries overwhelmingly borrow short-term debt despite decades of warnings. Lucas and Luna…
- The Fiscal Policy Podcast with Fexingo: Government Budgets, Stimulus, and Public Spending
Why Government IT Projects Cost Ten Times More Than Planned
Why do government IT projects routinely blow past their budgets by 10x or more? In this episode, Lucas and Luna drill into the specific case of…
- The Fiscal Policy Podcast with Fexingo: Government Budgets, Stimulus, and Public Spending
Why Governments Pay Two Different Prices for the Same Drug
In this episode of The Fiscal Policy Podcast, Lucas and Luna uncover a bizarre quirk in government healthcare spending: federal programs like Medicare and the…
- The Fiscal Policy Podcast with Fexingo: Government Budgets, Stimulus, and Public Spending
Why Government Health Programs Pay Double for Generic Drugs
Episode 30 of The Fiscal Policy Podcast investigates a strange but costly inefficiency: government health programs in the US often pay far more for the exact…
- The Fiscal Policy Podcast with Fexingo: Government Budgets, Stimulus, and Public Spending
Why Governments Still Use Paper Checks in 2026
In an era of Venmo and FedNow, the U.S. federal government still issues over 140 million paper checks each year. Lucas and Luna dig into why — from the…
- The Fiscal Policy Podcast with Fexingo: Government Budgets, Stimulus, and Public Spending
Why Governments Pay Two Different Prices for the Same Drug
Episode 28 of The Fiscal Policy Podcast uncovers a strange asymmetry in US government spending: the Department of Veterans Affairs pays dramatically less for…
- The Fiscal Policy Podcast with Fexingo: Government Budgets, Stimulus, and Public Spending
How the US Treasury Borrows Trillions Like Clockwork
The US Treasury issues roughly $1.5 trillion in new debt every year. Most people never think about how that actually works. In this episode, Lucas and Luna…
- The Fiscal Policy Podcast with Fexingo: Government Budgets, Stimulus, and Public Spending
How One Small County Got Its Budget Audited by Citizens
When officials in rural Douglas County, Oregon, faced a $2 million shortfall in 2023, they did something unusual: they opened the books to a citizen audit…
- The Fiscal Policy Podcast with Fexingo: Government Budgets, Stimulus, and Public Spending
Why Government Guarantees Create Hidden Debt
Episode 25 of The Fiscal Policy Podcast digs into the quiet machinery of government loan guarantees — the kind that back mortgages, student debt, and small…
- The Fiscal Policy Podcast with Fexingo: Government Budgets, Stimulus, and Public Spending
How Governments Waste Billions on Unused Software Licenses
Episode 24 of The Fiscal Policy Podcast digs into a hidden drain on public budgets: unused software licenses. Lucas and Luna reveal that governments at all…
- The Fiscal Policy Podcast with Fexingo: Government Budgets, Stimulus, and Public Spending
How Government Pension Assumptions Hide Trillion-Dollar Gaps
Episode 23 of The Fiscal Policy Podcast examines the delicate art of pension discount rate assumptions. Lucas and Luna dissect how a one-percentage-point…
- The Fiscal Policy Podcast with Fexingo: Government Budgets, Stimulus, and Public Spending
Why Governments Pay Rent to Themselves
Episode 22 of The Fiscal Policy Podcast digs into a strange but massive line item in federal budgets: intragovernmental payments. Every year, the U.S. Treasury…
- The Fiscal Policy Podcast with Fexingo: Government Budgets, Stimulus, and Public Spending
Why Government Spending Multipliers Are Smaller Than You Think
Economist John Cochrane argues that fiscal stimulus has a lower multiplier than most policymakers assume. This episode drills into one overlooked mechanism…
- The Fiscal Policy Podcast with Fexingo: Government Budgets, Stimulus, and Public Spending
Why Government Budgets Are Built on Fantasy Revenue Forecasts
Episode 20 of The Fiscal Policy Podcast dives into the quiet scandal of official revenue forecasts: the ones governments use to build their budgets. Lucas and…
- The Fiscal Policy Podcast with Fexingo: Government Budgets, Stimulus, and Public Spending
Why Government Spending Multipliers Are Smaller Than You Think
Lucas and Luna unpack the fiscal multiplier—the concept that every dollar the government spends should generate more than a dollar of economic activity. But…
- The Fiscal Policy Podcast with Fexingo: Government Budgets, Stimulus, and Public Spending
Why Governments Still Pay for Things That Never Get Built
Every year, governments around the world appropriate billions of dollars for projects that never break ground. Lucas and Luna explore the strange economics of…
- The Fiscal Policy Podcast with Fexingo: Government Budgets, Stimulus, and Public Spending
Why Government Budgets Use Accrual Accounting
Episode 17 of The Fiscal Policy Podcast dives into a wonky but crucial question: why do most governments still budget on a cash basis when every private…
- The Fiscal Policy Podcast with Fexingo: Government Budgets, Stimulus, and Public Spending
The Hidden Economy of Government Surplus Auctions
When the US government wants to get rid of surplus property — old office furniture, decommissioned vehicles, seized assets — it doesn't just throw them…
- The Fiscal Policy Podcast with Fexingo: Government Budgets, Stimulus, and Public Spending
Why Government Travel Per Diems Cost You More Than You Think
Lucas and Luna explore the hidden economics of government travel reimbursement rates, or per diems. Using the US General Services Administration's 2026…
- The Fiscal Policy Podcast with Fexingo: Government Budgets, Stimulus, and Public Spending
Why Your City's Budget Is Probably Bond-Rated Wrong
Municipal bonds are the building blocks of American infrastructure, but the credit ratings on them are often surprisingly misleading. In this episode, Lucas…
- The Fiscal Policy Podcast with Fexingo: Government Budgets, Stimulus, and Public Spending
How the Pentagon Keeps Its Books Secret
The US Department of Defense has never passed a full financial audit. In this episode, Lucas and Luna unpack why the largest single organization in the federal…
- The Fiscal Policy Podcast with Fexingo: Government Budgets, Stimulus, and Public Spending
How One City Turned Its Pension Crisis Around
This episode dives into the pension crisis facing many US cities, using Houston as a case study. In 2017, Houston faced $8 billion in unfunded pension…
- The Fiscal Policy Podcast with Fexingo: Government Budgets, Stimulus, and Public Spending
How Inflation Taxes You Without a Vote
Episode 11 of The Fiscal Policy Podcast digs into inflation as a hidden tax. Lucas and Luna explain how the U.S. government benefits from inflation by paying…
- The Fiscal Policy Podcast with Fexingo: Government Budgets, Stimulus, and Public Spending
The Quiet Power of Fiscal Rules
Lucas and Luna explore how fiscal rules—legal constraints on government borrowing and spending—shape budget policy in countries like Germany, Switzerland, and…
- The Fiscal Policy Podcast with Fexingo: Government Budgets, Stimulus, and Public Spending
Why the Federal Government Is the Worlds Largest Landlord
Lucas and Luna explore a surprising corner of fiscal policy: the U.S. federal government owns nearly 640 million acres of land — roughly 28% of the country —…
- The Fiscal Policy Podcast with Fexingo: Government Budgets, Stimulus, and Public Spending
What Happens When a City Really Defaults
Episode 8 of The Fiscal Policy Podcast with Fexingo digs into the most dramatic fiscal failure at the local level: a municipal default. We use the 2013 Detroit…
- The Fiscal Policy Podcast with Fexingo: Government Budgets, Stimulus, and Public Spending
Why Governments Still Love Infrastructure Bonds
In this episode of The Fiscal Policy Podcast, Lucas and Luna explore the durable appeal of infrastructure bonds — from the first U.S. railroad bonds in the…
- The Fiscal Policy Podcast with Fexingo: Government Budgets, Stimulus, and Public Spending
How Municipal Bonds Really Fund Your City
In this episode of The Fiscal Policy Podcast, Lucas and Luna unpack the municipal bond market — a $4 trillion ecosystem that quietly finances schools…
- The Fiscal Policy Podcast with Fexingo: Government Budgets, Stimulus, and Public Spending
The Real Cost of Government Subsidies for Chip Manufacturing
In this episode of The Fiscal Policy Podcast with Fexingo, Lucas and Luna examine the economics behind government subsidies for semiconductor manufacturing…
- The Fiscal Policy Podcast with Fexingo: Government Budgets, Stimulus, and Public Spending
The Strange Economics of Tolls and Public Roads
In this episode of The Fiscal Policy Podcast, Lucas and Luna explore the economics of toll roads—why some governments privatize them, why others keep them…
- The Fiscal Policy Podcast with Fexingo: Government Budgets, Stimulus, and Public Spending
How the Federal Reserve Funds the Government Without Congress
When Congress can't agree on spending, the Treasury turns to a surprising source: the Federal Reserve. This episode unpacks the Treasury General Account —…
- The Fiscal Policy Podcast with Fexingo: Government Budgets, Stimulus, and Public Spending
Why US States Keep Cutting Taxes and What It Costs
Lucas and Luna dig into the wave of state-level income tax cuts sweeping the country — from Florida to Kansas to North Carolina — and ask whether the promised…
- The Fiscal Policy Podcast with Fexingo: Government Budgets, Stimulus, and Public Spending
The National Debt Clock Is Spinning Faster Than You Think
In the debut episode of The Fiscal Policy Podcast, Lucas and Luna start with a staggering number: the U.S. national debt has passed $36 trillion for the first…