By Jack Bernard
PEACHTREE CITY, Ga. | Only one president in recent years accomplished the goal of balancing the budget. That was Bill Clinton. He had budget surpluses for fiscal years 1998–2001, the only such years from 1970 to 2023. Donald Trump’s record from 2017-2020 conclusively illustrates the fact that he supported excessive spending.
There are several primary drivers causing our long-standing deficit.
a. Increasing entitlement costs (Social Security/Medicare), because of our aging population;
b. Expensive but popular programs designed to lessen poverty, create economic growth and strengthen our military. The non-profit Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) states that unless we are unwilling to drastically cut popular programs strongly supported by voters, we must generate more federal revenue to reduce our debt and balance the budget.
A fiscal conservative does not slash taxes while increasing spending programs, as Trump did. The tax cuts enacted under Trump and George W. Bush caused the deficit to be twice as large as it would have been .
Trump alone caused our nation’s debt to rise by $8 trillion to $28 trillion. In 2017, the first year of the Trump Presidency, the national debt increased by $671 billion. In 2018, pre-pandemic, it went up to $1,271 billion. By the time he left, the national debt increased by $4,226 billion annually.
Declaring that his tax bill would pay for itself through economic growth. That was a ridiculous and obvious lie with little or no basis in reality. Then President Trump dramatically cut taxes. People at the very top of the income scale (top 0.1 percent) got an average cut of $252,300 each. The lowest fifth each got a $70 cut.
As a result, 83 percent of these tax cuts went to big business and the richest Americans. The GOP tax cuts helped those who needed it the least.
Trump’s tax cuts are due to expire in 2025. He disingenuously states his tax cuts created improved economic markets which result in higher tax collections, which generate more revenue than the tax cuts. Trump wants these cuts extended, which would raise the deficit from $3.3 to $4.6 trillion (per Bloomberg).
This irrational premise is Trump’s continuing excuse for reducing taxes on big corporations, plus the wealthy like himself and Musk. He wants to cut the corporate tax rate to 15 percent, down from an already inadequate 21 percent (Harris seeks to raise corporate taxes to 28 percent). But Trump’s efforts to cut the taxes of big business will just increase the already enormous national deficit.
The Congressional Budget Office projects that the federal deficit will increase to 10 percent of Gross Domestic Product by 2043-2051 from 4.2 percent of GDP in 2022.
When I was young, the Republicans were the party of fiscal responsibility and would have acted to avert this crisis. But nowadays, the only time the GOP talks about fiscal responsibility is when the Democrats are in the White House. And even then, the GOP-controlled House does not pass true spending reduction bills that have any chance of getting enacted.
Under Donald Trump, the Republican party seeks tax cuts for the rich while not putting forth any realistic plan to cut spending. Trump’s base should be renamed the MABA- Making America Broke Again. This situation will not change until GOP leadership has the courage to stand up and recognize Trump for the irresponsible charlatan that he is.
- Have a comment? Click here to send an email.
Follow Us