How to Avoid Budget Cuts? For Trump, it’s as Simple as Praying the Economy Gets Better
This is a rather amazing headline from the New York Times:
Trump Pinning Hopes on Economic Growth to Avoid Budget Cuts
This nugget comes from the same “Fox & Friends” interview that brought us the wild-eyed Obama-is-among-us conspiracy theories we told you about earlier today.
Per the Times:
“I think the money is going to come from a revved-up economy,” Mr. Trump said in an interview with Fox News when asked how he would pay for his plans. “I mean, you look at the kind of numbers we’re doing — we were probably G.D.P. of a little more than 1 percent, and if I can get that up to 3 or maybe more, we have a whole different ballgame.”
We will now pause while you make an educated guess about whether he went on to outline specifics as to how to up the GDP.
Done?
If you said no, you are correct. And in fact, his own people, as well as independent economists, project growth that comes up far short of this standard—his own budget office has the optimistic expectation of 2.4 percent growth through 2018.
Meanwhile, other Republicans are piling on the cuts he’s already proposed:
Early doubts among Republicans were palpable on Tuesday. Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida, suggested that Mr. Trump’s proposal to reduce spending on foreign aid would be unwise for fiscal and security reasons.
Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, panned Mr. Trump’s plan to make deep cuts at the State Department, calling the idea “dead on arrival.”
Double meanwhile, House Republicans are clamoring for huge cuts to Medicaid and Social Securit, as they’ve always done, and holy shit, what a huge insane and tragic mess.