A few weeks ago, I started taking two eggs to the studio with me every morning to scramble for breakfast. I crack them into a bowl, fork-whisk them with some water, and microwave them for about 2 minutes. Then I sprinkle cheese on them and enjoy!
(That’s probably the most complex recipe I’ve ever written.)
The first day I did this, I had lunch a few hours later with a listener and new friend and as we were just chatting, it came up that she prepares breakfast for her family on the weekends. She uses a blender bottle to whisk the eggs, adding milk first, and then shaking and pouring.
She said, “I know some people use water, but I like milk.”
It happens sometimes that someone mentions, or I hear on the news, or I read in an article something that I’ve just experienced, done, or heard about elsewhere. That the same thing comes around again. Even if I’ve never thought of water in eggs before, suddenly it’s a conversation I’m having two or three more times in a short span.
These recurrences, in literature, are often called deja vu. In real life, we think of deja vu as a kind of mystic familiarity, like we dreamed something would happen and then it does. Lately I think it’s just the inevitable consequences of both consuming and producing an inordinate amount of content.
I read a LOT. I listen to a LOT of podcasts. I’m on the radio for nine hours a week, lecturing nine hours a week, and writing 1000 words a week. So there’s a LOT. It’s likely topics and ideas will repeat. Even introduced by others.
Okay, so what does this have to do with the campaign, Kasie?
Uncertainty. It was the word of 2025.
I read a book on it back in the beginning of 2025, Uncertain: The Wisdom and Wonder of Being Unsure by Maggie Jackson. I’d heard her on a podcast, The Grey Area with Sean Illing (episode link). What I was attracted to was Maggie’s assertion that to be uncertain about things was to be open to receiving new information, to learning and growing. That to be uncertain, was to be wise.
Okay, fast-forward to December 11, 2025 and I’m attending the Economic Outlook Forum at the University of South Carolina’s Pastides Alumni Center and my colleague, Joey Von Nessen, presents his report on the economy in 2025 and the theme is “uncertainty.”
Some of the information Joey shared:
Prices have been rising faster than wages.
- Real wage growth (the most useful metric) is increase in earnings minus the rise in prices.
- Meaning, if you get a 3% raise but the price of everything goes up by 3% you haven’t increased your buying power.
- Real wage growth hit a low of -7% in May of 2022 (post-pandemic, recovery, understandable) and while it’s increasing, we’re still at -4%.
- While we expected to hit 0% by 2027, inflation is stubborn and so we likely won’t hit 0% until 2028.
Uncertainty, Joey said, has impacted decelerated wage growth.
Uncertainty in 2025 specifically.
When the word “uncertainty” appeared again, it was in The Triumph of Economic Freedom, another book I heard about on a podcast.
This time, the message was: “Economic uncertainty and prosperity are sworn enemies.” authors Gramm and Boudreaux argue, “Uncertainty undermines prosperity by sapping investor and consumer confidence, choking off entrepreneurship and private investment, and suppressing consumer spending (p.76).”
So it was the year of uncertainty and while I started the year feeling positive about that, wise, even, by the end of the year, I was less patient with “uncertainty” than I expected to be.
What is causing the uncertainty:
- Since Liberation Day, we have had frequent tariff levies, extensions, negotiations, and dozens of flip-flops creating a kind of chaotic volatility that has manufacturers cautious.
- There have been legal challenges to the validity of the tariffs.
- There was a government shut down that delayed reporting on critical economic data.
- There have been Congressional theatrics around healthcare subsidies.
- There has been an escalation in military action against Venezuela.
- A “flood the zone” strategy by the administration (pick every fight, all the time) has confused opponents, overwhelmed the media, and diverted the public from undesirable reports.
On Tuesday, December 16, 2025, I attended the Columbia Economics Club’s monthly meeting with guest speaker Romina Boccia, author of the Substack Debt Dispatch and researcher at the Cato Institute.
In her comprehensive breakdown of the national debt (and its existential threat status which confirmed my own suspicions), Romina reminded us that uncertainty is not an accident. It’s a strategy used by the people who plan to push the expense of the government to the generation that cannot vote.
This government has taught current voters that they can spend anything they want. They’re getting government at a discount. And there’s nothing the future voters can do about it.
So, to recap 2025:
Things are chaotic.
That’s by design.
It’s so those in government can continue their reckless self-dealing.
We have to do something about it.
It’s 2026 and it’s time to take action.
Government is not free and we’re spending ourselves into insolvency. Passing the buck to the next generation is not just irresponsible, it’s immoral.
There is a complex recipe to fix this. It includes:
- An appointed commission to examine Social Security and Medicare and recommend cuts.
- Decoupling Social Security from Medicare so that they can be dealt with separately.
- Simplifying the tax code so that we can better predict revenues.
- Reducing government spending so that we eliminate the deficit and stop growing the debt.
- A debt-brake mechanism like the Germans have.
We have to bring forward all of the options. We cannot tariff our way out of this. No matter what the talking points tell voters. Remember they’re counting on us not knowing our numbers.
In some other post we’ll talk about how tariffs are just more taxes on us, the law-abiding middle class, anyway.
But for now, let’s remind ourselves that our government isn’t working. It’s not meeting basic expectations: operate within your means, protect your citizens. In fact, it’s spending wildly, recklessly, and abusing us all.
It has to end. And this year, we’ll do something about it.