Posted on 04/03/2016 11:22:01 AM PDT by Steelfish
Fact Checker Trump’s Nonsensical Claim He Can Eliminate $19 Trillion In Debt In Eight Years
Donald Trump, in an interview with Bob Woodward and Robert Costa In a revealing interview, Trump predicts a ‘massive recession’ but intends to eliminate the national debt in 8 years
By Glenn Kessler April 2
The Washington Post's Bob Woodward and Robert Costa sat down with Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. Here's how the interview went. Donald Trump: “We’ve got to get rid of the $19 trillion in debt.”
Bob Woodward: “How long would that take?”
Trump: “I think I could do it fairly quickly, because of the fact the numbers…”
Woodward: “What’s fairly quickly?”
Trump: “Well, I would say over a period of eight years. And I’ll tell you why.”
Woodward: “Would you ever be open to tax increases as part of that, to solve the problem?”
Trump: “I don’t think I’ll need to. The power is trade. Our deals are so bad.”
Woodward: “That would be $2 trillion a year.”
Trump: “No, but I’m renegotiating all of our deals, Bob. The big trade deals that we’re doing so badly on. With China, $505 billion this year in trade. We’re losing with everybody.”
— exchange during a Washington Post interview, March 31, 2016
Of all the wildly impossible assertions made by Donald Trump, the notion that he could eliminate the nation’s $19 trillion in debt in just eight years ranks near the top. Trump suggests he can manage this feat simply by cutting better trade deals.
If only it were that easy. As we have noted repeatedly, eliminating a trade deficit does not mean the money ends up in government coffers. (Morever, Trump is wrong to say the trade deficit with China is $505 billion; it’s $366 billion, according to the Census..... (READ ON)
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Shut down the Federal Reserve and have them write down the $4 Trillion+ in Federal Bonds they own.
End Social Security and write down their $5 Trillion of US Debt. Pay the poorest seniors greatly reduced rates direct from budget on declining basis and tell the US Population - “you should have never trusted your Federal Government in the first place.”
Negotiate a hair-cut on remainder of debt with Chinese, Japanese, etc...
With end the Federal Reserve, return to gold-standard which would simply make long-term, structural deficits impossible.
Are Cruz supporters saying its impossible to shrink government and pay off national debt? Why are we electing Cruz again?
You hit the nail on the head.
The politicians will never balance the budget let alone pay down the debt. But they know how to protect their cushy jobs & power.
Trump 2016! Clean the stables!
NYC spent 5 times as much to never build an ice rink, even after 8 years.
He did it in 4 months for far, far less and it works great.
You were saying?
Of course it can be done. It’s just that you apparently have come to see government spending as sacred or inevitable. Trade is just one aspect. Apply real business principles to all over government and the savings will be tremendous. Start with selling off federal lands...how much could that bring? Make countries pay for their own defense. Eliminate unneeded jobs. Reform government pay and benefits to be in line with economic conditions. There is so much waste and fraud. This is exactly why the establishment fears a president Trump. He really will drain the swamp.
A negative thinker sees difficulty in every opportunity. A positive thinker sees opportunity in every difficulty.
Cruz supporters want the status quo. Everyone else must be ridiculed.
Trump is the only candidate with a financial background who understands the macro economics involved. The others, Cruz, Kasich, don’t have to go into much detail on what they would do because they have no intention of changing anything.
But ask yourself this, if Paul Ryan would pass a two-year $2 trillion dollar budget in plain sight in an election cycle, what will he do after another round of safe seats. And what would he do as President because a vote for Cruz is a vote for Ryan.
We don't get to choose which alternate universe we get to live in. We are stuck with this one.
But as long and we are bent over the wishing well, I got a list of stuff I want...
“I wouldn’t call anybody a buffoon that can make 10 billion from 1 million...”
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I wouldn’t either. Perhaps he should have stuck to what he as good at?
I am a Cruz man on the whole but have seen played out, time and time again, the crucifixion of political candidates by self-important slobs like Woodward (Watergate was about a call girl ring the DNC was running) on nebulous golgothae. The complexity of deficits, interest, debts, trade imbalances is understood partially by maybe a few Americans, namely, professional economists who also happen to be treasury secretaries or deputy secretaries. Does Woodward fully understand how a balanced recovery toward fiscal responsibility can happen? No. Does Trump? No. But - does Trump have the balls, the wherewithal, the friends, the clout, and the confidence to give it a shot as Reagan did in California? What do YOU think?
They are! That's why the GOPe goes along with every spending plan...ever increasing debt and ever increasing spending. It's a gravy train for everyone involved in government and they're all getting theirs before it comes crashing down around them.
You can’t pay off that kind of debt without really hurting the country and cutting back social programs like social security. He will never get elected if he cuts back on the social programs. Even you know that and please don’t start spewing the government waste argument. It won’t save that much. It is much more reasonable to eliminate the deficit and slowly pay off the debt as it matures. Quit buying into Trump’s con job. Remember he was the idiot who said sky high oil prices were going to destroy us ... wrong.
Yeah, because they have to get elected and the majority of people don't want all of these programs and services to go away.
And the billions in illegal non profits government contribution, while increasing import taxes and developing a domestic labor force.
I don’t have a problem thinking big but making the process look easy because Trump can do it as boss of his own company benefits no one. If losing helps him take another tactic that might be all for the best right now.
Trump said that everyone close to him — family, friends, Republican leaders — has been urging him to tone down his attacks and reach out to former rivals, both to reassure wary voters and to begin the difficult process of unifying a party in which many have sworn to never back him. Trump does not intend to take the advice. He said such overtures are “overrated.”
“I think the first thing I have to do is win,” he said. “Winning solves a lot of problems. And I have two people left”: his two remaining Republican rivals, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas and Ohio Gov. John Kasich.
https://www.washingtonpost.com...
its unbelievable that cruz supporter on this board are actually attacking trump’s ambitious plan to cut national debt.
A very good sign here is that the Washington Compost sees fit to kill millions of trees and use traincar loads of ink ‘warning’ us about Trump.
Used to be an unwritten ‘law’ that if an adversary was ‘hurting’ himself, better to let him go rather than alert him and give him a chance to right himself...
Just saying...
Democrats hvae no problems cutting the VA or raiding social security or ultimately 401ks
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