Says Rep. Tom Cole, R-Oklahoma: Trump’s numbers don’t add up.
Someone in the national press corps is finally focusing on an issue less ephemeral than Donald Trump’s tweets: the fiscal disaster that looms if all of the president’s programs are enacted. Writes Rachel Blade and Josh Downey in Politico:
“I don’t think you can do infrastructure, raise defense spending, do a tax cut, keep Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security just as they are, and balance the budget. It’s just not possible,” said Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), a senior member of the House Budget Committee. “Sooner or later, they’re going to come to grips with it because the numbers force you to.”
Duh.
If designed properly, tax cuts could be stimulative, but it takes a leap of faith to think that faster economic growth would recoup all the lost revenue. Carefully designed deregulation of the healthcare, banking, telecommunications and energy sectors could promote growth as well, although not without some offsetting risks and costs. Even if economic growth does rebound, it will likely trigger inflation and the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates. There are no magical policy levers that will allow the U.S. to fulfill all of Trump’s promises without running up deficits and the national debt.
My hunch is that the GOPs in Congress can water down the more fiscally irresponsible of Trump’s plans but won’t stop them all. Trump will blame the resulting deficits on Obama, just as Obama blamed his deficits on Bush. Words won’t change anything. Boomergeddon is coming. The only question is when.
