WASHINGTON — Citigroup reported third-quarter profit up 40 percent from a year earlier on Tuesday. Goldman Sachs reported profit up 29 percent. JPMorgan earned $5.57 per share, short of analyst estimates of $5.93.
The Institute for Common Sense responded within the hour with a recommendation that the federal government earn the difference back from itself.
“Banks are doing great. They made more money than last year, and they didn’t ask anybody for a dime,” said Dr. Chad Brickhouse, a senior fellow at the Institute, reached by phone from a car wash in Columbus, Ohio. “Meanwhile the government is spending like it has a credit card that it also issued. That’s just common sense.”
The government’s own figures, from the Congressional Budget Office show a federal deficit of about $2.0 trillion for fiscal 2026. That is roughly $218 billion more than the year before. Revenue rose $169 billion. Spending rose $386 billion.
Brickhouse said the numbers were not the problem. He said the problem was that nobody had asked the government to account for them the way a bank would.
“A deficit is when you owe more than you took in,” Brickhouse said. “Our government owes $2.0 trillion. It took in $169 billion more than last year and spent $386 billion more. Those are the numbers. You should not have to be told the numbers twice.”
He proposed a fix. Each federal agency would earn its own profit, sell its own shares and report its earnings to the Treasury Department. The Treasury would then return those earnings to the agency as a dividend, minus a fee for the Treasury’s time.
“The Treasury is the only bond on the market that pays itself interest,” Brickhouse said. “I don’t see why it shouldn’t.”
Janice Pruett, 52, a bank customer in Dayton, Ohio, said she had not received a dividend from the government. She said she was happy for the banks.
“They had a good quarter,” Pruett said. “That’s all I wanted to know. The rest is for the people who make the charts.”
Brickhouse said the Institute would release a follow-up study once it had more to say. He then said he was pulling into a bay and hung up.
Glenn Whitacre filed from a rental car in Columbus, Ohio.