Donald Trump Leaving A ‘Nightmare’ Of Debt To Next President, Columnist Calls It ‘The Antithesis Of MAGA’
Donald Trump is seemingly unconcerned about the amount of debt his administration has racked up with massive tax cuts and new spending programs — leaving what one columnist calls a “nightmare” for the next president.
Writing for the Daily Beast, Matt Lewis noted that Trump’s spending has increased tremendously despite his past promises to bring down the national debt. Lewis seized on a new report from White House sources that Trump has dismissed fears of the quickly growing debt but saying, “Yeah, but I won’t be here.”
Lewis, who called Trump’s attitude “the antithesis of MAGA,” couldn’t imagine a scenario where another president would be so cavalier about an impending crisis.
“Imagine a scenario where a president is told that war is looming, but said president dismisses the warning because he or she ‘won’t be here.’ Imagine a leader who accepts all of the apocalyptic warnings about climate change, but concludes that the really bad stuff won’t happen until he’s out of office. For those who take generational theft seriously, this is a serious abdication of responsibility.”
The Weekly Standard, a right-leaning publication that has been consistently critical of Trump, also took note of his failure to adhere to campaign promises to eliminate the national debt in eight years. The report pointed out that the national debt was at $19 trillion at the time Trump promised he would eliminate it, but instead of shrinking he has actually grown the debt by more than $1.7 trillion in that time. For the fiscal year that ended in September, the debt rose by $779 billion, a 17 percent increase from the previous year.
The report added that most of Trump’s spending hike outside of the tax bill has come in defense spending, with an estimated addition of $200 billion being pumped into the Department of Defense budget over the next year years. But it also pointed out that the benefits of new trade deals and from Trump’s tax cuts are largely yet to be felt, so the debt could decrease in the future.
the Obama recovery is wearing down and huge debt, trade wars, rising interest rates and a slowdown in China’s economy are pushing us toward a setback, if not a full-blown recession. https://t.co/btMNnQIM7a
— Jennifer "Pro-privacy" Rubin (@JRubinBlogger) December 6, 2018
Donald Trump’s alleged claim that he doesn’t have to worry about the ballooning national debt because he “won’t be here” has led to attacks from critics on both the left and right. Many point out that Trump has now backed away from most of his campaign trail promises, from his pledge to build a wall and make Mexico pay for it to his frequent statements that he would prosecute Hillary Clinton for her email scandal.
