'Deficit Hawk’ Greene Profits From U.S. Debt — And Budget Brinksmanship

During her year in Congress, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia has tried to paint herself as a hardcore fiscal conservative — angrily slamming President Joe Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for increasing the United States’ federal deficit even though she never had a problem with former President Donald Trump doing that. But according to the Daily Beast’s Roger Sollenberger, the far-right MAGA Republican has found a way to profit from the government debt she complains about.

“Last September, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) called for a shutdown to stop government spending,” Sollenberger explains. “Four days later, she lent the government money. Financial disclosures show that on September 21, the anti-government conspiracy theorist bought between $250,000 and $500,000 in U.S. Treasury bills — low-yield financial instruments that help the government fund the debt and pay expenses such as salaries.”

In May 2021, Greene was among the Republicans who co-sponsored a bill introduced by Rep. Andy Biggs of Arizona: the Recognizing the National Debt as a Threat to National Security Act.

Sollenberger comments, “Greene must not think it’s much of a threat: The T-bill purchase was her largest transaction of the year, and it’s not even close. Greene, who is a multimillionaire, has traded heavily in securities since she joined Congress a year ago, executing 76 purchases and 14 sales. Of those 90 transactions, the second-largest purchase range behind the T-bill buy was between $15,001 and $50,000 — a difference of hundreds of thousands of dollars. Congressional disclosures only give dollar amounts in ranges.”

Liberal economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman predicted that when Biden was sworn in as president, Republicans who had no problem with the federal deficit when Trump was president would magically rediscover fiscal conservatism — and sure enough, Republicans are now worried about government debt once again. One of them is unwavering Trump sycophant Greene.

“In her short time in Congress,” Sollenberger observes, “Greene has endorsed multiple government shutdowns over Democratic spending packages…. Last month Greene was back at it, calling to ‘shut it down’ over the $29 trillion national debt she had just supported with her own money.”

Article reprinted with permission from Alternet