When it comes to government taxes and spending, Trump has promised the following (Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz have similar proposals):
— balance the budget in 10 years.
— not cut Social Security or Medicare.
— ramp up defense spending.
— pass a tax cut that loses $9.5 trillion of revenues over the next decade.
That can’t be done.…
The problem: If you take that much off the table, there’s not enough left on the table to cut. To get to balance, non-interest outlays (though Trump is a serial defaulter, I’m assuming he’d pay interest on the national debt) outside of the areas mentioned would have to be cut in their entirety.
Actually, more than their entirety; by 114 percent in 10 years, such that government spending outside of Social Security, Medicare, defense and interest on the debt would be -1.1 percent of GDP….Magic numbers. Tariffs.
The Washington Post
Donald Trump’s impossible fiscal plan
Jared Bernstein, former chief economist to Vice President Biden, is a senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
1 comment:
Does it matter? Wouldn't we have bigger problems than "darn, didn't get the budget balanced" at that point?
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