Posted on 07/10/2019 6:17:20 AM PDT by Fawn
Two and a half years into his term, President Trump has little to show for breaking with erstwhile Republican Party orthodoxy on trade and budget policy.
Indeed, far from delivering on his promise to cut America’s trade deficit, Trump has presided over a ballooning deficit that’s on pace to be some 25 percent higher than when he took office. This is happening at a time when the budget deficit is widening and the country’s public debt is well on its way to exceeding 90 percent of GDP.
What would happen if POTUS simply declares that we will default on all debt? The Treasury would go to zero and we’d then need to reboot and reset our global financial relationships, especially with China. Stop the printing press. We’d still be one of the best games on town to bet on and do business with. At least we’d have some control. Of course, the legislative overhaul in the house would need to be massive but it’s run by children. Yeah... We’re screwed, sooner or later.
Common sense is not common. Thanks for pointing out the truth. Until people stop listening to spin & look at the facts you laid out there will be no impetus for change.
The only thing I can think of is to limit entitlement spending to 90% of tax , decreasing 10% a year till it reaches 50%. Not great, but way better than what we have now.
Both prosperity and frugality need to work together, but if the only thing that Trump can work on is the prosperity, it’s better than nothing.
I’m not blaming Trump. This is a national issue. The voters want low taxes and high spending so that’s what the politicians give them, Trump included but whole congress right there, too.
Even the Tea Party just wants to do publicity stunts like government shutdowns. No one wants to adjust SS or Medicare, and without that, there will be no trend change.
Entitlement spending could be a lot smaller, even with some remaining secular liberal mindset, if churches could conjoin private benefit activity with gospel preaching, and it wouldn’t even need to be hard-sell.
The problem is that the purpose of entitlements is about buying voters for democrats. Helping those in need is really just secondary.
A sea change in popular attitude will be needed.
And also we have to end the trend of welfare for general society equating to welfare for politicians. That kind of beast will grow without limit, like a cancer, until it brings a society to its knees.
Needless to say, it is far too early to make a definitive assessment of the major shift in U.S. trade and budget policy on Trump’s watch. But the initial indications give reason for considerable concern.
Far from strengthening the country’s external accounts, the Trump import tariffs and budget largesse are doing the reverse, as indicated by a widening U.S. trade deficit.
The sHill is at it again with their lies. It will take decades of reciprocal tariffs to even trade imbalances, but those myopic fools that can only see the next quarter things look bad.
Year over year federal income grew form 2017 to 2018 ad is projected to increase again in 2019 and 2020.
Wait, let me get this right
Last week we all witnessed the Democrat party promising free healthcare to the entire planet, all they have to do to get is, well come here anyway they can.
And we are worried about Trump spending?
Nuts on parade
Look at it like an invasion. A group of people came into the country and took control of it. They kept that control off and on, in many ways, for about 100 years. During that time, they changed the way things had been done to include many of the country’s base theologies, religion, finance, opportunity, education, wealth distribution, and a few others. An example is like the point that until a short time in the early 2000’s, this group had control of, at least, one of the three ruling bodies, and the supreme court from 1953 to 1969 with Warren in charge and in 1969 when the Burger court took the reins and didn’t do anything to change the liberal policies of the Warren court until 1986 at which time the country’s policies had been cemented in.
A strong new leader steps in in the 1980’s and is, literally, screwed by congress. A soft leader comes in the early 90’s and did almost nothing, followed by a complete disaster for the rest of the decade. Another soft one, early 2000’s followed by an evil one until 2016.
See the pattern? Slowly but surely, that invading group has systematically changed our existence into subservience of there’s whether they have to run things or not. There is an increase in spending. But most of it is to repair the mess those invaders made. And to get rid of this infestation, is going to take time, money, and scratching every inch of the way as they are still around making every effort to hold their ground.
One once said that Rome wasn’t built in a day. A lot more here than just tearing down a city. We’ve got to do that and convince the world we are no longer their unlimited supply of everything from food, money, and protection using the lives of our citizens. But that’s what the invaders caused and too many of our people couldn’t or didn’t stop. And the new guy on the block has to clean it up with almost no help from the people he should be able to count on and is expected, or cursed, with having to fix it in four years what took over 100 to break.
He’s done a lot. But he ain’t God. Don’t expect him to be.
rwood
I don’t recall The Hill being so concerned about deficits when Obozo was in office...
When we point to the latest socialist basket cases, like Venezuela, this is probably a point that doesn’t get as much attention as it deserves.
What brought Venezuela down wasn’t even the bennies to the people, as much of a load as that was. It was the bennies to the politicians who made a career out of handing out bennies to the people.
Secular welfare states end up paralyzing themselves with bureaucracy to administer it.
Great observation — in fact only God is God.
I got into an argument about this in a thread I started yesterday in Religion. There’s the folks who just want their freedom hamburger without thinking about the water that went into making it possible. That only works until desert conditions threaten.
It’s a “country” of career welfare bureaucrats.
And America earned it by sufficiently thumbing its nose at... wait for it... God. And I don’t even mean a dwindling of grandiose government gestures. I mean a lukewarmness in the houses of God themselves.
If you could ask our log past founders what to do about the current fiscal mess the USA is in that is what they would tell us to do - tariff.
That alone wouldn’t win without a significant boost in patriotism. Chinese junk would get 20% more expensive but there is a huge profit margin there already. If every dollar raised through tariffs resulted in a corporate tax cut of a dollar, AND we had a boost in patriotism, we’d start to go in the right direction.
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