It's impossible. Lets keep everything business as usual, shall we?
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 ...
“It IS possible and can be done.”
Can you be more specific?
You cannot eliminate $300 billion a year from a program that only costs ~$75 billion a year. That’s like saving $4000 on a tv that only costs a grand. Not possible.
It’s a matter of math.
The feds collect around $3 trillion in taxes each year. To devote $2+ trillion of that to retiring debt would require cutting federal spending by more than half ON DAY ONE, or would require almost doubling the overall federal tax burden. And Congress would have to agree.
Cut taxes and regs to stimulate the economy, and cut spending, and the debt will resolve itself (but only with multi-election discipline).
It’s also the most moral one of the choices available. Default on the debt and let’s deal with the carnage now rather than forcing future generations to deal with it.
It’s more moral than making my children, who never agreed to the expenditure, and who will never benefit from them, debt slaves.
The added benefit is that nobody will lend us money on the future so we will have to live within our means (now that is “sustainability” I can live with!)
Trump wants to cut the debt over his 8 years. That’s better than an intention merely to have a lower deficit. If he only reduces it 1 trillion in 8 years he’d still be better than every president since Coolidge. Hillary is not going to reduce the debt.
If Trump cuts the billions we spend on garrisoning other countries it will be a step in the right direction. Now we’re told it is foolish to reconsider the current path of borrowing money from China and Japan in order to afford to defend Japan from China, or paying billions to reinforce South Korea, who has twice the population and an economy 40x the size of North Korea’s...
It’s ironic, the only non-politician who stepped up to the plate, telling the country were been looted and screwed by loser leadership, and here comes the mockers, attempting to discredit Trump’s every word. And who are these people? They’re the same ones supporting the same political establishment politicians who created this epic mess.
Scary times. The spooks who want to keep everything business as usual seem to be everywhere.
Go Trump.
I’ll tell you how you eliminate and payoff the debt. Eliminate the Federal Reserve, they own most of the debt anyway, and they charge us to print our own money. F them and honor our debt to China Japan and others but not to other Central Banks.
It's impossible. Lets keep everything business as usual, shall we?
Of course we could get rid of the national debt by shrinking government. But that’s not what Trump said — he said he would do it by changing our trade policies.
This makes no sense; how would changing our trade policies eliminate the deficit and the debt? The only way to do is to live within our means.
If Trump wants to reduce the size of government, I’m all for it. But I haven’t heard him say that.
NEVER UNDERESTIMATE THE POWER of DONALD TRUMP to GET 'ER DUN.
It is always great to see people not willing to deal with reality and change the subject. I am saying a much better way to go is get rid of the deficit and slowly pay off the debt. You will NOT get elected by paying down 2 trillion dollars of debt a year because you will be impacting way to many people who count on the free sh!t and will not vote for you. Plus you will also be impacting the security budget of this country. Quit buying into Trump’s con job.
U.S. Federal debt is constitutionally obligated. I agree that the sophistry of intra-governmental borrowing could be eliminated. I would like to imagine that Trump was Jackson incarnate, and the bank (the Fed) would be destroyed, but I'm not going to hold my breath on that. ALL the monied interests would oppose it, and Trump would probably meet a bullet first.
Maybe you left the /sarc tag off again. If you applied a 45% tariff on all of our imports (about $2.5T annually IIRC) that would theoretically raise $1.1T annually. This effectively be paid by the US consumers. Maybe over time US industry will make the huge capital investments needed to produce the same products and we would see manufacturing growth but US consumers will be paying a lot more for everything they buy. Of course, other countries will likely set up retaliatory tariffs on our ~$2T exports, making our domestic industry internationally much less competitive. So if nobody changed their buying patterns, US consumers would effectively pay a $1.1T tax per year to put $0.9T in the US treasury. That would put a 5% drag on the economy and retire some of the debt. Of course, people would change their buying patterns and the net result would be less pronounced while the tariff wars would be wildly disruptive and create huge uncertainties.
Maybe you should actually pay attention to some American history.
We have eliminated HUGE amounts of debt in . . . eight years.
Harding and Coolidge eliminated 1/3 of the national debt in eight years after World War I and CUT taxes. Jefferson eliminated about half in eight years from 1801-1809, during an economic recession.
I’m not sure about all $19 trillion but I am sure that massive, significant debt reduction could be accomplished in eight years with important redirection of our trade policy and most of all, spending policy.
Harding and Coolidge had surpluses in every one of their eight years. At one point unemployment dropped to 1.6%.
You heard that right. Can you imagine the impact on American growth and debt payment if real unemployment were 1/12 what it is today???
So, no. It’s not crazy, it’s not fantastic, it’s been done before under much worse circumstances. All you need is will.
And it’s unflattering only because it’s so stupid and the author didn’t even bother to check simple history.
Was that sarcasm?
Trade deficit <> Government Spending deficit. Two completely different things. Fixing the trade deficit will have only a modest impact, if any, on the government spending deficit.
I recall that recently Trump said he would keep Social Security as is. DJT is not a con man. No need to con when he is capable of doing what he says he will. Trump sees the upside for America. He is not geared for failure like his detractors. Which is why his Make America Great again rings true. He delivers.
Hey some of are supporting a guy in Wisconsin running against Ryan. Hope you can join us.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3417002/posts
Good to see that somebody knows the time of day.
The economy is so bad that even with all the QE they have barely starved off deflation. Other countries have devalued their currency which does not benefit us. But you’re right good old inflation would solve the problem.
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