Here's the number to hang on to: 57 percent. That's the share of local emergency management offices in America that run on one full-time employee or less, according to a new census by Argonne National Laboratory. Twenty-two percent have nobody full-time at all.

In October, FEMA Administrator Cameron Hamilton told the nation's state emergency managers to build up their reserves and plan to handle most disasters without federal help, with changes that could start within six months. Days earlier, his seven-page memo to every FEMA employee named objective number one: reduce federal government dependency. The president's FEMA Review Council has already proposed cutting the federal share of disaster costs from at least 75 percent to as little as 50 percent, phased in over two to three years.

Host Steve Ellis is joined by TCS Director of Research and Policy Josh Sewell, who read the memo so closely he checked whether someone had copied TCS's homework. States should carry their share and prepare before the storm. TCS has said so for years. The question is how far this goes and how fast.

Can a state hire, train, and budget its way there in six months, when many legislatures meet for only part of the year and some only every other year? Who does the work if FEMA steps back? And what happens to FEMA's know-how when its workforce is already down about 17 percent?

Plus: the weirdest line in the memo, why a levee can be a tool to flood your neighbor, and what taxpayers should watch for when Congress comes back to a December 11 funding deadline.

The question was never whether. It's how far and how fast.

Fiscal year 2026 is over, and the books are closed. The Congressional Budget Office puts the deficit just shy of $2 trillion: $218 billion more than the year before, in a year with no pandemic and no recession.

Spending grew twice as fast as revenue. Outlays rose $386 billion to $7.4 trillion. Revenue rose $169 billion to $5.4 trillion. Corporate tax receipts fell 16 percent even as corporate income went up. And net interest on the debt hit $1.14 trillion, now the second-biggest line in the federal budget behind only Social Security. That works out to about $3.1 billion a day.

Host Steve Ellis is joined by TCS Director of Research and Policy Josh Sewell to close the books: what came in, what went out, and who left the tab open. They dig into why the promised tariff windfall turned into roughly $130 billion in refunds after the Supreme Court ruling, why cutting IRS funding costs more in lost collections than it saves, and what higher Treasury rates do to the interest bill. Then a year of receipts: the One Big Beautiful Bill Act’s deficit promises, GAO’s review of DOGE’s “Wall of Receipts,” roughly $4 billion paid to offshore wind developers to walk away from their leases, and the $810 million pocket rescission that closed out the fiscal year.

Plus: Josh turns the tables on Steve. Is this a both-parties problem or a 119th Congress problem? And what belongs on the lame-duck to-do list before the December 11th deadline.

The books on fiscal year 2026 are closed. The tab is still open.

It's the last week of fiscal year 2026, and for once there's no shutdown drama. A continuing resolution runs through December 11. But late Friday, the White House sent Congress $810 million in "pocket rescissions." That's money Congress appropriated and the president signed into law, which the administration now plans to hold until it expires at midnight Wednesday. Congress won't vote on it. The calendar will decide instead.

TCS President Steve Ellis and Director of Research and Policy Josh Sewell go through what's in the package, including $567 million in HHS programs and grants at Education and Justice. They explain how the 1974 Impoundment Control Act's 45-day clock is supposed to work, and what last year's Supreme Court ruling decided and what it left open. They also cover why GAO calls the move illegal. Two Republicans on Senate Appropriations disagree: Sen. John Kennedy attacks the programs, while Chair Susan Collins attacks the process. Josh and Steve also test the principle by asking what happens when a future president in the other party does the same thing to shipbuilding or highways. Then they look ahead to what taxpayers should watch from GAO, the courts, and a lame-duck Congress after the midterms.