12 votes

Trump demands action to reduce deficit and pushes new deficit spending

2 comments

  1. [2]
    BuckeyeSundae
    Link
    Free access to the article is here: http://archive.is/ws6th I don't often buy into the White House intrigue stories, but this one definitely seems to hit a different mark. After massively...

    Free access to the article is here: http://archive.is/ws6th

    I don't often buy into the White House intrigue stories, but this one definitely seems to hit a different mark. After massively increasing the deficit through his own signature initiatives, and continuing to talk about more ways to spend even more money, Trump is now vaguely interested in some visible but ultimately tiny limits to spending that would make it look like he and his party cares about the size of the deficit.

    I also enjoyed this moment:

    Chief of Staff John F. Kelly has told others about watching television with Trump and asking the president how much the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff earns. Trump guessed $5 million, according to people who were told the story by Kelly, startling the chief of staff. Kelly responded that he made less than $200,000. The president suggested he get a large raise and noted the number of stars on his uniform.

    It just underscores how unprepared and temperamentally unfit he is to run the country, but hey. People who weren't convinced of that already surely won't be convinced of it now, and almost no one else needs convincing.

    The slight ray of sunshine I find in this story is Trump seeming to recognize that trying to go after Medicare or Social Security to address the deficit is a losing argument. He does seem to have a better read of his core supporters than the Republicans around him. The deficit isn't an issue that registers to many people until it reaches absurd levels, and given the reaction under Obama (albeit, in a time of economic crisis), many Republicans will look to that to justify the current spending levels (albeit, in a time of economic growth).

    The argument Republicans had long been making is that Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security ought to be reduced in spending because people are better off without those programs having a large footprint. As a trade off for that reduced spending, they would seek to tax people less. What Democrats argued with Trump's tax cut was that this was a foot in the door to arguing that these welfare programs were "unsustainable" simply because the deficit was so large, and the reason the deficit got to be so large was because the tax cut wasn't offset by anything. It was done and the hope was that economic growth would make up for the lower tax rates and it would be "deficit neutral" in the long run.

    A year in, that growth rate isn't panning out as it need to for that to be true. The hope isn't a reality, and now the chickens are coming home to roost.

    10 votes
    1. nacho
      (edited )
      Link Parent
      I've been enjoying the great series The Clinton Affair recently. It goes into the whole affairs and perjury charges he faced. I'd totally forgotten the footage of his depositions. When they were...

      I've been enjoying the great series The Clinton Affair recently. It goes into the whole affairs and perjury charges he faced.

      I'd totally forgotten the footage of his depositions. When they were released and shown live on TV the whole dynamic of perjury and the whole situation changed completely overnight.

      Clinton just nailed his performance and showed it was all about lurid sex details. Most voters obviously felt those going after him had crossed a line, and the electorate essentially gave Democrats and Republicans alike permission to vote against impeachment.


      Now showing tapes of Trump being asked questions. That'd all but ensure he'd be removed. There's incompetence you can manage, but not in the face of a team of the best interrogators while being video-taped for 6 hours at a stretch.

      There's no way in hell an affidavit or any presentation/questioning where Trump doesn't have to answer questions directly is in any way fair.

      I'd also forgotten that The House published the entirety of the special council's report sight unseen. I bet the Democrats would love to do the same with the Russia investigation.

      If the Kavanaugh hearings were must-see tv, can you imagine what it's going to be like when the House committee gets the report and calls in Trump's lawyer and Muller to present it?


      With Bill Clinton, and now how the economy was going was decisive in the President's future.

      How quickly the chickens are coming home to roost could turn out to be really important.

      (The Democrats don't have the votes they need in the Senate at any rate, so impeachment isn't important. It's the political fallout and stringing up Trump so he can't spend his time on other stuff they need. I just hope they don't forget they actually need a platform to run on in 2020 like they seemingly forgot in 2016.)

      7 votes