Regular readers know that I generally don’t get overly agitated about government debt (I get far more upset about counterproductive spending, regardless of how it is financed).
But even I recognize that there is a point where debt becomes excessive.
So let’s start today’s column with the simple observation that America’s current fiscal trajectory is unsustainable.
The burden of federal spending is projected to jump over the next several decades up to 30 percent of GDP while taxes “only” increase to about 19 percent of GDP.
It is inconceivable that all that new spending will be – or can be – financed by borrowing. Simply stated, domestic and international investors will decide that bonds from Uncle Sam are too risky.
So that leaves only two options.
- Spending restraint, inevitably requiring entitlement reform.
- Massive tax increases, inevitably targeting middle-class Americans.
Regarding those two choices, Donald Trump supports massive tax increases.
He’s not overtly admitting that agenda, but that’s the unavoidable outcome based on what Joshua Green of Bloomberg recently reported about his opposition to entitlement reform.
Trump is hoping to reverse his fortunes and revive his moribund presidential campaign with a…short video message. …he looks straight to camera and declares, “Under no circumstances should Republicans vote to cut a single penny from Medicare or Social Security.” …In fact, he has been remarkably consistent and outspoken over the years in his attacks on Republican efforts to cut Social Security and Medicare. …he was viewed as the least conservative Republican nominee in decades. He favored lots of infrastructure spending…and he made a big deal about protecting Social Security and Medicare.
The story also explains that Trump was the big-government candidate among Republicans in 2016 (as I noted at the time) and suggests he will hold to that position as the 2024 race develops.
Trump’s position set him apart from the other 16 Republican presidential candidates, who generally shared Ryan’s belief, prevalent among House Republicans, that cutting Social Security and Medicare was a fiscal imperative. That’s where DeSantis comes in. …DeSantis was also one of the founding members of the House Freedom Caucus, which drove the effort to cut entitlements when he was in Congress. DeSantis voted repeatedly — in 2013, 2014, and 2015 — for budgets that slashed spending on Social Security and Medicare
By the way, the article is flat-out wrong on a few points.
It is grossly inaccurate to assert that the Ryan budgets “slashed spending.” Overall spending increased in the budgets that Ryan, DeSantis, and other Tea Party Republicans supported back in 2013, 2014, and 2015.
All that happened is that spending would not have been allowed to grow as fast as previously planned.
Also, while the Ryan budgets included genuine Medicare reform (and much-needed spending restraint), they did not address Social Security reform. So the report was wrong on that as well.
But I’m digressing. The key thing to understand is that Ryan, DeSantis and other Republicans in the House last decade tried to do the right thing.
Donald Trump, by contrast, did the wrong thing. And he wants to do the wrong thing in the future. And that means huge future tax increases on you and me.
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Image credit: Gage Skidmore | CC BY-SA 2.0.
