Planet Money - Econ Battle Zone: Budget Showdown

Episode Date: June 25, 2025

Econ Battle Zone is back! On today's episode Mary Childs and Kenny Malone enter Econ Battle Stadium to throw down against reigning champion Erika Beras.Can Mary explain what effect extending the 2017 tax cuts will have on economic growth AND make her entire segment rhyme? Will Erika be able to overcome her fear of singing and craft a country song about the history of Medicaid? Can Kenny put together a piece about what warning signs economists look for to know whether the national debt has grown too large... but as a romantic comedy?Guest judges Betsey Stevenson and David Kestenbaum face a difficult choice... but only one contestant can claim the coveted Econ Battle Zone Belt.Artists featured in this episode: Rexx Life Raj (IG: @rexxliferaj); Merle Hazard; Alison Brown; Tristan Scroggins; Matt Coles; and Garry West.Special thanks to Liz Garton Scanlon, Robin Rudowitz and Sarah Rosenbaum.Find more Planet Money: Facebook / Instagram / TikTok / Our weekly Newsletter.Listen free at these links: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, the NPR app or anywhere you get podcasts.Help support Planet Money and hear our bonus episodes by subscribing to Planet Money+ in Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org/planetmoney.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

This is Planet Money from NPR. Last time on Econ Battlezone, Erika emerged victorious. I can't believe I won. Anything is possible. And was awarded the Econ Battlezone belt. There's a lot of gold. There's a lot of gold on this. There's a lot of gold. There is a lot of gold on this. Today two new Planet Money reporters enter Econ Battlezone Stadium. I'm Kenny from Meadville, Pennsylvania.

I'm Mary from Richmond, Virginia. Ready to do whatever it takes to get their hands on the belt. I love shiny things like a raven. I would wear that belt for a full month everywhere I went. I'm not giving this belt up. This is my belt. Welcome to a special episode of Econ Battlezone. Today, Mary and Kenny come for the champ.

Let's have today's contestants join us in Econ Battlezone Stadium. Erica, Mary, Kenny, the rules are simple. You will each be assigned at random your own Econ Challenge question and secret ingredient. You will need to answer that question, include your secret ingredient, and delight and inform our judges. Since I don't know what we're doing, there's no real way to prepare. I'm already panicking about how I haven't spent 24 hours panicking. Our country is in the midst of a great debate about the federal budget and the deficit.

Should we shrink the size of the federal government? Should Congress extend the tax cuts from President Donald Trump's first term? Today's Econ Challenge questions all have something to do with that budget debate. Computer, please shuffle today's questions and today's mystery ingredients. Mary, you're first. Nice. Your question, what effect will extending the 2017 tax cuts have on economic growth? And why do different economic models

give different answers to that question? Okay. And now computer, what is Mary's mystery ingredient? Rime. To succeed, your piece must include as much rhyming as possible. Mary, how are you feeling about your challenge? Listen, when you said deficit, I was like,

oh, these jokers are knocked out. Like you better, I am ready for deficit. I've been living here. And then it was about tax cuts, but I like rhyme. I don't often get to make my shows rhyme. So that's exciting. All right, let's move on to our next competitor. Computer, what is Kenny's economic challenge question?

Kenny, your question is, what signs do economists look for to know whether our country's $36 trillion national debt has reached a level where it has begun to hurt the economy? OK, I can do this. Mary looks mad. Mary, did you want this one? Yeah, this one's a slam dunk for me. It's all right. You can have it. Now I feel like the stakes are higher. Now I really can't can do this. Mary looks mad. Mary, did you want this one? Yeah, this one's a slam dunk for me. It's all right, you can have it. Now I feel like the stakes are higher.

Now I really can't botch this. Computer, what will Kenny's challenge be? Genre. Kenny, your story must belong to one of the following three genres. Science fiction, romantic comedy, or horror. Only one. Okay. Okay. Okay. Alright that leads us to our defending champion, Erika Barris. Erika, there is only one challenge

remaining and only one mystery ingredient. Here we go. Computer, what she got. Erica, your question is about the fight over whether to cut hundreds of billions of dollars in Medicaid funding over the next decade. So how did we get here? What are the three most important events in Medicaid history from its creation in 1965 to the present day. Okay. And... ... Erika, your piece must contain a musical number.

Whoo! That is great! Oh, no, see, that's not... The dream, Erika! That is not the dream! Are you kidding me? I hate musicals, and I am tone deaf, and I don't want any part of this. Contestants, remember, you have just 48 hours to become experts in the federal budget debate.

Locate and interview your guests, and explain everything to us in just three minutes. Whoever impresses our judges the most will take home the title of Econ Battlezone Champion. How's that sound? It sounds terrifying. And Erica, it sounds like you've got some musical lessons to take, I'll be honest. I'm your host, Keith Romberg, and this is Econ Battlezone.

Can I keep talking about how I feel about this? I don't think it's fair. Why do I have to do a musical number? Welcome back to Econ Battlezone. I'm joined now by our two guest judges. First up is Betsy Stevenson, who teaches economics and public policy at the University of Michigan. Betsy, what can you tell us about the challenge facing our contestants today? What's going to separate a good economic answer from a great one?

Well, these are all kind of meaty economic questions. I think in particular, Kenny's question, trying to understand that point at which debt becomes too much, I don't think anybody actually fully knows the answer. What about for Mary? What relationship are you looking for in terms of the effect individual tax cuts will have on growth?

Economic growth fundamentally and always comes down to innovation. So now we've got to understand how giving people more money somehow spurs innovation in the economy. That can be true, but sometimes it's not. And then finally for Erica's challenge, what's gonna be the mark of success for you there? What are the three most important events in Medicaid history? Is that important to the well-being of the public? Is that important for debt?

Is that important for health care? I want to see what she thinks is important and then see if she can make a case for that. Our second judge is one of the senior editors of This American Life and a former host of Planet Money, David Kessenbaum. David, what about the special challenges facing our contestants? I think the challenge with all of them is like, there's a great cringe danger, you know?

Also that it would distract from the explaining that you're trying to do. But also, you know, I want to see if they can do it. While our judges awaited the outcome, our contestants were already feeling the pressure, especially the returning champion, Erica. I'm pretty sure I have the Medicaid part of this down. The musical number part of this is really tripping me up. Erica did not consider herself a musical person.

I took piano when I was 10, and four weeks in, the teacher told my parents they should just save their money. And that was the end of that experience. So she started looking for allies. I am sending an email to this country-singing economist, and his name is Merle Hazard, which you know is kind of funny and he's got all these great songs like how long will interest rates stay low it's kind of a shot in the dark I don't know if he's gonna respond even but you know

he's just gotta try things. Meanwhile Kenny was also out there trying things. So here's what I'm thinking I throw off Eric and Mary make sure they're not going to the staff meeting. And we should not go to the noon staff meeting, correct? And then I'll go to the staff meeting. Correct. No, I'm not going. And use that to brainstorm some ideas.

He took his question about warning signs that the national debt had grown too large to the Planet Money Zoom meeting. Anyone I should talk to about when the national debt had grown too large to the Planet Money Zoom meeting. Anyone I should talk to about when the national debt triggers a problem? The research is all over the map on this, but like you could talk to three economists and you get five opinions on this.

But like if the economy is doing great and we're like growing a bunch, it doesn't really matter. Like it can go up to like a huge percentage of GDP or like it could be a weight that is suppressing growth. And if it keeps growing, then it's siphoning away both government investment and private investment. Kenny also had questions about the genre

he had chosen for his challenge, romantic comedy. On that front, the team was less helpful. It almost immediately was like waylaid by a debate over whether Lost in Translation even is a romcom or not. Wikipedia says it's a romcom. Lost in Translation? It's not a com. I don't know if it's even very rom. It's just sad. It's not a rom or a com. My god.

And I was just like, I don't know what to do. Mary began by diving into the substance of her assignment, why economic models disagree about the effect of extending tax cuts. What have you learned? I learned that there are differences in how you can model these things. Like, if you and I both built a model,

we might differ on how elastic the world is to our changes. So for example, I might think that labor is not that responsive to changes in taxes and that people aren't gonna necessarily work a ton more, that that response isn't gonna be huge. And you might be like really optimistic about that. But it wasn't long before she turned her attention to her mystery ingredient, rhyme. At the tone, please record your message. Hi, this is Mary Child's calling. I was just calling with a bit of an odd request.

I have a reality show style challenge. I explain an economic concept in three minutes. It has to rhyme. And I was hoping to get help from Run the Jewels. I have a really weird and time sensitive request for Juicy J. I think you are still working with 2 Chainz, possibly. I was wondering if Andre 3000 might be available today. Oh, and it has to be today, which I realize is insane. Okay, thank you so much. Bye.

While Mary waited to hear back, Erica had already managed to land a collaborator. Um, the guy who's going to be singing with me is a country music singing economist. Murl Hazzard had agreed to help and to connect Erika with some of his musical friends. Well, I just booked a Grammy-winning banjo player and an entire Nashville band to work with me on this.

So I don't know, I don't know. I'm in a pretty good place. Kenny, on the other hand, was feeling less in control. So I think my plan, which has literally developed in the last seven minutes while I was making coffee, is to make a trailer for a rom-com. A trailer for a rom-com about the national debt. I'm so mortified that what I'm going to present

is so bad and dumb. Oh, God. As the second day of the challenge began, Kenny tried to learn how to pull off his plan. It's 4.30 in the morning. We remind our travelers that using electronic devices is the third step in taking off the device. What was that? What did she say?

That sounded serious. Alright, so I've noticed something. Come with us. If your husband wouldn't mind. She doesn't have a husband. I don't have a husband. Come on, let's go. Alright. When everything's changing, you're gonna have, boom,

hit of like, awesome pop song from exactly that year. ["I Had Walked"] My only came to tell you that this can't go anywhere beyond this evening. And you should have worn a different dress. So the narrator says lead number one's name, lead number two's name. Reese Witherspoon, Mark Ruffalo.

And then there's a little moment from the movie. John Heater. I'm like 99.9% parched here. Could really use a cola. There's the name of the movie. Just like heaven. And then there's a final little moment from the movie. Excuse me. Pardon me.

What's wrong with him? So I think that is how our trailer needs to end. Mary's plans also started to take shape, beginning with a call to Ari Simon at the record label Empire. The only thing I would say is like we're up against the fact that you need it tomorrow. And the fact that like really what you're asking for is like three minutes of someone like rapping continuously about a topic they probably don't know a ton about. Okay.

But Ari did connect Mary with someone who was at least willing to give it a shot. I'm Rex Life Raj. I'm a recording artist out of Berkeley, California. I rap, I sing, and everything in between. And Mary and Raj got to work trying to bridge the gap between dropping taxes and dropping bars. Like what exactly are we talking about? Just how tax cuts affect? The economy. Yes, how tax cuts affect. How tax cuts do or don't generate economic growth. Mary explained that different models

made different predictions about the effects of extending tax cuts on growth and on how little of the lost tax revenue might be made up by that growth. And so who projected that it would be 6 to 16 percent? So that would be the tax foundation predicted forecast 16 percent and the tax policy center said 6 percent. In turn, Raj worked with Mary to find a rhyme to explain the importance of factors worked with Mary to find a rhyme to explain the importance of factors not included in those economic models. Indogeneity, right? Indogeneity. Doesn't it feel like there's a lot to work with there? Yeah, definitely. Nice. Indogeneity. I'm gonna put that in my phone.

Meanwhile, Erica tried to put a country spin on how Medicaid spending had grown over the decades as Congress extended coverage to different groups of people. The thing is that the big thing in this is the 1972 expansion. She and her new band in Nashville met for a writing session and kicked around ideas about how to transmute Medicaid's increasing percentage of federal spending into country music goals. By 80 budget share was 2.4 but there were still bigger changes in store. Yeah, that's good John. The material was not a natural fit.

So the main thing was that in 91 is 4% of the budget, but then by 2000 it was 6.6. I actually have to say the words Affordable Care Act somewhere in there. OK. OK. But I mean, does that rhyme? Let's see.

Congress Affordable Care Act. Can we try again? But by the end of the night, they had the beginnings of a song. How do we get here? How do we win? Does all the money flow? Like that?

That sound OK, Erica? It sounds great. OK. Really? Yeah, it sounds so good. It sounds like a real song. Yeah, it is. This will work.

And then there was Kenny. He had booked an economist. He was sure could answer his question about when the size of the national debt starts to hurt the economy. Hello, hello. Can you hear me? Yeah, yeah, yeah, that works. Harvard professor Ken Rogoff. Now, I have to start out by saying that the whole premise of what you're asking me about, there's no answer to. Kenny hoped to use the interview as raw material for a charming romantic comedy movie trailer.

What was your plan for your interview with Ken Rogoff? So I was like, what do I specifically need from Ken? Some kind of physical comedy is good. It's good to have a pet. And I have a dog that wears diapers. He could walk through the background. Like, that might be funny. and I came down to this list I needed the meet cute on tape. I needed a moment of tension with him on tape and Then I needed a moment of softening slash reconciliation What's your exposure to romantic comedies? my wife watches a lot, uh-huh and

How well did your plan work out? Poorly. I would say poorly. Okay, I'm sorry about that. This dog is out of control. I've lost total control of my house. So I feel like we've gone through everything at this point. Absolutely, Professor. Yep. Now I will edit it so that it sounds like Ken Rogoff and I had a delightful interaction. It's possible though if you ask him, he will be like, I talked to this guy at Planet Money and he must be the dumbest reporter I've ever met in my entire life. As the deadline closed in, the contestants worried whether their creations would be ready in time.

The stakes are high. I'm going to open this file. If it works, it works. If it doesn't, well, I don't know what we'll do. Literally everything that could possibly have gone wrong technically went wrong. Oh my god, this is so bad. This is so bad. I have half an hour.

I have half an hour. I'm not even close to finishing this. I'm so, I'm, ah! All right, time is up. Hands up. Oh, no. Hands up from your editing software. Erica Barris, how are you feeling about your piece? Um, I feel like medium.

Medium rare. Is that what I'm gonna call it? I'm medium rare right now. Mary, how are you feeling about your piece? Mm. Well, Keith, if I may pull from one right now. Mary, how are you feeling about your piece? Well, Keith, if I may pull from one of the greats, there's a certain slant of light, winter afternoons, that oppresses like the heft of cathedral tunes.

Heavenly hurt it gives us, we can find no scar, but internal difference where the meanings are. But Mary, how do you feel about your piece? Oh, sorry, was that the question? Decent, you know? Kenny, I'm gonna go to you next. Y'all, it was, I haven't heard it. So I don't know. That's not good.

That's not good, man. And frankly, I don't know what piece of audio I put in at the end. Coming up, the contestants present their stories to our judges, and we all learn who will secure the Econ Battlezone belt. Welcome back to Econ Battlezone. We've assembled our three contestants and our guest judges here in Econ Battlezone Stadium. This American Life's David Kestenbaum. Hi.

And from the University of Michigan, Betsy Stephenson. Hello. Let's get right into it. Mary, you're up first. What have you brought our judges today? Good morning, judges. My mission was to investigate what effect a tax cut extension would have on GDP growth and then explain why different economic models might give different answers to that question. The economist I talked to said yes, it could generate some growth, largely by incentivizing lower-income workers to work more hours. But everyone agreed it would not be nearly enough to make up the lost future tax revenue.

For help with my challenge, which was rhyming, I called in some trusted professionals. award-winning children's book author Liz Garten-Scanlon and Planet Money producer extraordinaire James Snead. And then I got help writing and performing from a rapper in Berkeley named Rexlife Raj. And the result of that collaboration is what you're about to hear. Yo, what's up? It's Rexlife Raj. And I'm Mary Childs. Hello and welcome to Planet Money, Raj. Thanks for helping do the most. Today, we're going to try to figure out tax cuts. Will they boost economic growth? The political rhetoric is that it's supposed to help everybody. So does it? We're going to call some experts to try to make sense of it. So first, let's check the data with the studies show about if the cuts will help the economy to grow. And the good news

is from nearly every perspective, they drive a little growth, which is the objective. But that comes from lost revenue, federal cash not coming in. The government would have gotten 4 trillion. 4 trillion of lost revenue when they cut taxes, 6 to 16 percent gets recouped on the back end. That's according to analysis, according to the studies, because people will get to keep a little bit more of their money. The way that that's supposed to work is to incentivize, to make workers feel more ambitious and more energized. Tax cuts might generate some economic growth, but a lot of people think that's short term at the most. The question is, will cuts lead to more boots on the clock or just more executive bonuses and buying back stocks? We asked Kent Smetters at Penn, he said both.

The problem with that is that we're actually finding, yes, it's not big economic growth. In fact, statistically, it's kind of no different than zero. So even if you're looking for it, tax cuts aren't the hero. Because cuts help the rich more. The money, they crave it. Higher income people get the money, they're going to probably save it. Not spending the economy, says economist Banga Ajallori. So it doesn't boost growth as much as it could.

That's not this story. Let's talk about elasticity, something that we should mention. It's how people, our businesses respond to incentives, how flexible we are with our time and our money spending. Like, will tax cuts push us into making different decisions? Elasticities aren't huge, but it's a big base. Eric Zwick at Chicago says that there's a little space for disagreement, for projections to diverge.

Who's to say what will stay and what changes will emerge? Projections also differ based on how you see the world, how reactive we might be, and how changes get unfurled. The fact that things are complex, there's too much to account for. No model gets it all, there's just stuff they must ignore. I have a new word that you can say with me. Okay, Raj, what is it? Indigeneity.

When feedback loops start to twist and tighten the bolts and something outside of the model starts messing with the results, they use the lower class as the engine of the economy, making you turn your life force to a commodity. Do people work more if the taxes are lower? We gotta see. Will tax cuts make the businesses invest consciously? Or will it make the working man work more?

I just don't know if you gon' get what you hope for. They say that it'll help the working man earn more. That just sound like some rhetoric that we heard before. Tax cuts for economic growth feel like a turf war. I just don't know if you gon' get what you hope for. Thanks so much, Raj, with rhymes like diamonds glistening. This is NPR. Thanks for listening.

Oh my gosh! Woo! with rhymes like diamonds glistening. This is NPR. Thanks for listening. Oh my gosh! Woo! That was out of this world. That was amazing. Thank you. David Kestenbaum, what'd you think? Overall, really nice job. Like, I thought, oh, rhyming, that's probably one of the easier ones. But then when you hear it, like, it twists how you have to write every single sentence. It's just really, really challenging. I definitely admired the ingenuity and getting Raj to do that.

But I was genuinely interested in unpacking the question in some detail, and maybe that's not possible when you're also asked to rhyme. But I do think as a reporter, you have to figure out how to balance those things and not try and cover too much ground. Thank you, David. Betsy, how did you feel about the economics of the piece? I love it. I actually think it's just so clever.

I mean, I did not see you drop an endogeneity in there. And some of these phrases, like life forced to a commodity, just beautiful, and really good economics. The main idea is whose behavior is gonna be changed? Is it going to be lower income people or higher income people and by changing their behavior, is it really getting them to work harder or is it just making them richer? Thank you, judges.

Next, we turn our attention to our second challenger, Kenny. Kenny, tell us a little bit about what you're presenting today. Well, for my assignment, I have made a rom-com movie trailer featuring the indicators Waylon Wong, narrated by NPR Chief Economics correspondent Scott Horsley. And in this, hopefully, you will hear how one economic sign in particular may give us the clearest warning that the national debt is beginning to hurt the US economy.

I've heard this piece zero times, judges. I didn't have time to listen back. I think all of the parts are in their places, but I don't know for sure. Well Kenny, let's find out. Go ahead and press play when you're ready. Kenny? Happy National Cognac Day!

Kenny! It's 7am! Widely believed to have been established by the cognac industry in the United States as a way to spawn some- No, you did economics of made up holidays eight years ago! I know. Kenny is a down on his luck podcaster. Sheesh, is it National Walk with Crutches Day?

I had hip surgery from a running injury. I knew you'd been running away from serious stories, Kenny, but this is ridiculous. Ken F is a famous Ivy League economist. Harvard professor and former IMF chief economist is out with a new book today, Ken Rogoff. Good to have you all. Good to see you.

Two Kans, one world apart, until one day. Welcome to Econ Battlezone. One assignment. Kenny, your topic is national debt. Would change everything. Dear Professor Rogoff, interview request. Urgent interview request. Ken Rogoff said yes?

This is my chance to do something serious. Please don't turn this into National National Debt Day. Oh, that's not bad. Yo, Kenny, back away from the calendar. What happens Look at my crutches in place here. Oh, OK, that's. When can's collide.

We have a shared experience here. You're a Kenneth. My name is also Kenneth. Did you get, like, I guess to get teased, Ken Barbie, Kenny G. No, no, because it wasn't so common in my era. Anyway, let's move on to. But yeah. Can two can's teach something to all of yeah. Ken, 2Kens Teach Something to All of Us, specifically, teaches what indicators do economists look

to for whether the national debt is harming the economy? The big thing would be interest rates start going up. If the markets are already pressuring you because they're nervous about how much you're borrowing and they see you have a very cavalier attitude towards it, they'll say fine I'll keep lending to you but instead of just 1%, how about one and a half percent more that you're gonna have to pay. I see. So that's that's when you get stuck you know in one of these cycles. From Peabody award-winning Planet Money. I mean he says you only need to look at

interest rates. Comes a story. Interest rates affect everything Kenny. About the interest we owe on our debts. When interest rates go up they've gone up on everything on home mortgages, on car loans, on student loans and the national debt plays a large role in that. And the debts we owe to the people who interest us. You can't spell Kenny without Ken. Kenny Malone, Ken Rogoff, and the indicators Waylon Wong coming this summer in Nationally Indebted to You. How bad could it be? It's not like your dog walked in and knocked your crutches on your head.

Mmm. Once my dog, hey Zadie, Zadie, my crutches. Alright, and the, all right. And the crutches have fallen. That was beautiful. That was unbelievable. The debts we owe to those who interest us? I can't.

Let's, let's go ahead and turn to our judges. David Kestenbaum, what'd you make of that? I found that very enjoyable, the presentation of it. I enjoyed the classic planet money of trying something funny with the important smart person Ken Rogoff who is not there for it. So I thought like presentationally it was excellent. I thought content wise I realized they had lots of questions and I really wanted to dig into it and I just felt like I was just getting started. So yeah that's all all in the movie the full movie.

Anyway given the complications of the assignment very nicely done. And Betsy, what did you make of the economics in the piece? Well, I just want to say that was very very funny and enjoyable piece. Probably the most important concept is what you covered. The idea that the interest rate can go up. There are though, a lot of other aspects. We care a lot about what's the return on the investment we're making. So are we borrowing for an investment?

Are we borrowing for consumption? If we're investing in critical minerals so that our auto industry and our computer industry and our AI industry can grow, then basically economic growth is going to stay ahead of the debt. It was that idea that was missing in the piece. If your goal was to answer the question of, when should we become concerned about the size of the debt? What's the tipping point? The tipping point is when the debt is growing faster than the economy.

Thank you. Thank you, judges. All right, we've got one contestant left. Our returning champion, Erica Barris. Erica, what'd you bring us today? Okay, my assignment was to select the three most important moments in Medicaid funding from its creation in 1965 to today. I picked several inflection points when the program expanded who could be covered.

So in 1966, just 2% of the population was covered by Medicaid. Today, it's 21%. who could be covered. So in 1966, just 2% of the population was covered by Medicaid. Today it's 21%. To explain how that happened, I wrote lyrics for a song. And then I had to find someone to make that song a reality. I found this country singer economist. His name's Merle Hazard. He helped me put together a whole band called

E.D. and the Entitlements. The band is Matt, Gary, Tristan, my new good friend, Allison Brown, who is a Grammy Award winning banjo player. And they helped me write the music, they helped me tweak some of the lyrics and put this whole thing together. And then I sang the song, even though I cannot sing. And it is called

the Medicaid song. And here it is. Here's a little number about all the numbers relating to Medicaid. It all started in 1965 when the government said health insurance, you need it to stay alive. So Congress, they passed a bill. Some money from the feds but managed by the states, low-income Americans got preventative care on their plates. It was an entitlement program, if you will. By 1970, Medicaid was 1.4% of the budget through a funding formula that covered people from

LA to Nantucket. And the first big change, coverage for more people with disabilities in 72. By 1980, 1.4 was 2.4, but there were still bigger changes in store. Through the decade, the economy slowed, but health care grew. Oh, how did we get here? How did Medicaid grow? What happened when? And where does the money flow?

By the 90s, Medicaid had grown in all kinds of ways. Long-term care and women and kids no longer had to pay. In 91, Medicaid spending was 4% of the budget, but with a new change, more services were added to the bucket. In 96, welfare reform made it so. Cash assistance wasn't tied to Medicaid eligibility. What that did was expand the pool of people and gave some folks more flexibility.

Then CHIP expanded Medicaid for kids and by the year 2000, federal spending was 6.6. Oh, how did we get here? How did Medicaid grow? What happened when? And where does the money flow? Take it, Allison. Uh-huh.

And now we arrive at our third big change. It was back in 2010 when Congress enacted the ACA. The Affordable Care Act expanded Medicaid. The federal government offered a 90 percent match, but just for states that expanded Medicaid, the federal government offered a 90% match, but just for states that expand the coverage, match, and set up one more way in which states get paid. Now, 9% of the budget goes to Medicaid each year, nearly $900 billion. If you want to be clear, a fifth of us use Medicaid according to a reportage. Under the current proposal, hundreds of billions of dollars would be cut to maybe fill a budgetary gap. hundreds of billions of dollars would be cut to maybe fill a budgetary gap, but it

would leave 8 million people without health care coverage. How did we get here? How did Medicaid grow? What happened when? And where, oh where, oh where, oh where does the money flow? Okay. Incredible. Oh, Erica, fantastic.

Grammy award-winning, future Grammy award-winning. David, let's start with you. What'd you make of it? That was very enjoyable to listen to, nicely done. There's just something nice to hear about hearing the human voice. You know what I mean? You took advantage of the medium nicely. I enjoyed your Bob Dylan-ish delivery. Yes.

Betsy, let's turn to you. What did you make of the economics of this piece? Erica, you were asked what was important and what you said was, how did it grow? And that's your refrain in the song, I love it. And I think you did identify some of the big policy changes that led to the expansion of Medicaid. I mean, the ACA is the biggest expansion of Medicaid. And I think a lot of people don't realize that a chip expanding Medicaid to children was also a really important part of that. So I thought you

identified some of the real key aspects of how it grew. And I would say I love the song. I'm really glad that you jumped right into it and you smashed it with the singing. Thank you, judges. Great job. So, who will our judges choose to be the next Econ Battlezone champion? Will it be Mary and her tax cut rap? Kenny's rom-com take on the national debt? Or Erika's Medicaid country song? Mary, Kenny, Erica, you were each tasked with teaching us about one piece of the debate about the federal budget, and delighting us in the process.

And all three of you should hold your heads high. I will say this is the closest any Econ Battlezone vote has ever been. But there is only one Econ Battlezone belt, so there can be only one winner. David? Betsy? Who's taken home the belt? Can I just say how hard it was before I say? If we were a jury, we'd be there for days. They're all so impressive. They're all just so impressive. Mary, yours was really great and covered so much ground and so much depth in such a clever way.

Then Erica, so lovely to hear you sing and go through the history of it. But Kenny, I thought, you know, of all of them, like you narrowed the scope in a way that was useful. You know, you picked one simple thing you were to convey and you did that in a package that was enjoyable, which I think is in the great, you know, traditions of Planet Money. Kenny, the belt is yours. What? Oh, my God, I'm genuinely stunned. Thank you so much. This is one of the greatest achievements

of my professional life. To win this in front of Betsy, in front of whom I was worried about falling on my face intellectually, which I feel like I did a little bit still, nonetheless, but that's okay. I feel like this justifies everything. Thank you so much.

Kenny Malone, congratulations. You are the Econ Battlezone champion, and this is your belt. It's so big. It's so shiny. It's so big and shiny. I don't have any words. Will Kenny get to hold on

to his big, shiny Econ Battlezone belt, or will a new contender walk away victorious? Find out on the next Econ Battlezone. ["Econ Battlezone Theme"] Got a topic for the next Econ Battlezone? You can email us, planetmoney at npr.org. And if you want to see Kenny with his Econ Battlezone belt, keep an eye on our Instagram feed at Planet Money. The great James Snead produced this episode of Planet Money.

The show was edited by Jess Jang, engineered by Sina LaFreda with an assist from Jimmy Keighley, and fact-checked by Sierra Juarez. Alex Goldmark is our executive producer. Special thanks today to Robin Rudowitz and Sarah Rosenbaum, and to Erika's backing band, The Entitlements, John Shane, also known as Merle Hazard, Allison Brown, Matt Coles, Gary West and Tristan Scroggins. I'm Keith Romer, this is NPR, thanks for listening.