October 5, 2018: The Federal Deficit Balloons with Trump in the White House

 

10/5/18: Remember when Republicans promised they could cut taxes and the deficit would shrink? Before you could say, “Boy, Republicans really seem to have a soft spot for men who molest young women,” the deficit would disappear. Americans could live happily ever after – without affordable health care, true – but able to shout, “Merry Christmas,” willy-nilly. 

First, you had the Bush tax cuts. We know how those worked. During Fiscal Years 1998-2001, President Bill Clinton ran four consecutive surpluses and cut $559 billion from the national debt. 

(And, yes, he did have sex with that woman.)

 

Republicans took over in 2001 and jacked the deficit by putting two wars on the federal credit card and cutting taxes! Estimated cost of those wars since, according to the Wall Street Journal: $5.6 trillion. 

For Fiscal Year 2008 the federal deficit had increased to $459 billion, the worst year on record, topping another George W. Bush year, FY 2004: $413 billion. But FY 2009, when GOP policies were locked in place before President Obama sat down in the White House, was terrible. 

The economy tanked and the deficit ballooned to $1.4 trillion.

 

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YOU COULD tell yourself the GOP cared about fiscal responsibility during Obama’s time in office. The Tea Party crowd had a point, even if they weren’t strictly honest in how they ascribed blame. You can’t run massive deficits endlessly. The math doesn’t work. Three years of trillion-dollar deficits resulted, as the U.S. dug out of the Great Recession. By FY 2015, however, the deficit was a more manageable $438 billion. 

Soon congressmen began itching to spend more, especially on defense. The FY deficits rose again in 2016 and 2017. 

Then the Republicans took charge. They had the House. They had the Senate. They had the White House. 

They quickly cut taxes, especially for the wealthiest Americans, who already had billions. Republicans promised. The economy would boom! 

GOP policies didn’t work the way they said. The budget deficit for FY 2018 was: 

$782 billion!

 

According to the Congressional Budget Office, with the Trump tax cuts in place and the GOP charting the nation’s fiscal course, the estimated deficits are expected to be: 

FY 2019: $984.40 billion! 

FY 2020: $986.95 billion! 

FY 2021: $915.92 billion!

 

The deficits for FY’s 2022 through 2029 are now estimated to be around a trillion dollars annually.

 

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DONALD J. TRUMP, a.k.a. “Mr. Immaturity,” claimed today (without evidence) that women protesting the nomination of Brad Kavanaugh to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court were paid by…George Soros. 

“The very rude elevator screamers are paid professionals only looking to make Senators look bad. Don’t fall for it! Also, look at all of the professionally made identical signs. Paid for by Soros and others. These are not signs made in the basement from love! #Troublemakers,” he tweeted. 

Trump tweeted that claim because: 

A)    He’s a giant asshole. 

B)     He’s an idiot. 

C)    And he doesn’t care about evidence.

 

Ana Maria Archila, one of two women who had confronted Sen. Jeff Flake earlier, “and a self-identified sexual assault survivor, said in a statement that Trump’s tweet followed a pattern of ‘discrediting individuals who dare to raise our voices and force elected officials to listen to our stories.’” 

“No one can pay for someone’s lived experiences,” she continued. “The pain, the trauma, and the rage that I expressed when I spoke with Senator Jeff Flake in an elevator were my own, and I held it for more than 30 years to protect the people I love from it.” 

Trump’s claim was similar to right-wingers’ claims in 2017, that women who marched in protest against him, and his alleged sexual misconduct, early in his presidency, were paid …by Soros …to do so. 

The president’s claims also echo claims that the students who survived the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School and then organized nationwide protests against violence, were paid “crisis actors.” 

David Hogg graduated from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.

 

Don Jr. is a nitwit. 

Since we’re talking about nitwits and nitwit conspiracy theories, we should note that Donald Trump Jr. “liked” at least one tweet, which offered up the theory that David Hogg, 17, one of the leaders of the student protests was actually a 28-year-old actor. The idea that Hogg was not really a student was undercut quickly. Hogg was pictured, for example in a 2015 newspaper story, running in a cross-country race for Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. For good measure, the superintendent of Broward County Public Schools, Robert Runcie, told the  Tampa Bay Times about Hogg and other students: “These are absolutely students at Stoneman Douglas. They’ve been there. I can verify that.”