Budget Lunacy
Increases in our national debt should be reserved for economic or national security emergencies, neither one of which we are experiencing at the moment.
While the specifics of the House and Senate budget bills keep changing, the gist of the Trump budget comes down to this basic math. The federal government will continue to spend more than the revenues it collects. We’ll make up the difference by borrowing, by continuing to increase our national debt which, at more than $36 trillion, is already way too high.
The only question for the Trump budget is by how much will our national debt grow? The Trump/Republican plan is to cut back government expenditures by firing people willy-nilly and canceling or at least curtailing programs our people need. To what extent? The answer is, to the extent necessary to pass a budget that continues and even further reduces taxes principally for the benefit of wealthier Americans and larger companies.
Simply put, we can’t afford these tax reductions. If anything, we should be raising taxes imposed on those people and corporations who can afford to pay more to generate a surplus to pay down our national debt. Incur debt occasionally when a dire need arises but, in good times when the economy is strong, use surplus collections to pay off that debt.
Why don’t we do this? Start paying the national debt down instead of increasing it. Because, thanks to the re-election of Donald Trump, our government is being run and influenced by the wealthiest Americans whose selfishness doesn’t allow reasonable consideration for the rest of us.
For Democrats and thoughtful Republicans, this new budget is an example of extremely poor fiscal management in that it produces more trillions in interest-bearing debt – in the absence of a bona fide national crisis. For Trump, it’s all about winning, personally. Symptomatically, he is the poster boy for Narcissistic Personality Disorder. He only cares about himself. He has no choice but to do what he’s doing because the result defines him, and not in a good way.
Now you know why President Trump – via Elon Musk – is so anxious to reduce the federal budget annual deficit by $1 trillion, to decrease federal government spending by $1 trillion per year. It’s because doing so would reduce federal government deficit spending, not to zero, but by enough to assure the passage of his budget and its inherent tax cuts. If he doesn’t pass his budget in the next three weeks – before the March 14 budget deadline, unless Congress passes yet another extension – the government will shut down. And he’ll be the President of nothing.
Even if President Trump’s attempt to balance the budget is successful, which is highly unlikely, it does nothing to reduce our current level of national debt. Instead of cutting taxes, shouldn’t we be holding taxes at their current levels or increasing what the wealthiest Americans and companies pay, using the ensuing budget surplus to pay down our national debt? Of course not, because that would be the reasonable, normal thing to do.
Complicating the problem, Trump and his brain trust, such as it is, believe in the power of chaos. Their incompetence has allowed them to believe that chaos is an environment that facilitates their success. Even worse, they think it’s their secret power and that no one is wise in what they’re doing. Well, they need to get over themselves. I’ve seen going-out-of-business sales that were less obvious.
Trump, Musk, and Stephen Miller are right about one thing. Individual people don’t like chaos. What President Trump’s narcissism won’t let him understand, is that, more importantly, it’s the economy that doesn’t like chaos. Chaos makes the economy sick, resulting in unemployment and inflation that he and his gang can’t control.
What is the cure for an economy that has the capitalism flu Trump is giving it? Turns out that the economy has a robust immune response of its own. It’s unbearable pressure on the courts – even the Supreme Court with its Trumpian conservative bias – and on an electorate that will return control of the House and Senate to the Democrats in 2026.
President Trump just doesn’t get it. He may be President, but the economy is in charge. Capitalism in the United States is a force so great that, eventually, even his most ardent, richest supporters will abandon his special brand of self-interested politics. Needless to say, resolution will be a messy process. In the meantime, all his chaos is doing is stoking the fires that will eventually be his undoing. He’d be more likely to succeed at some level if he calmed things down, but he can’t help himself.
Les Cohen is a long-term Marylander, having grown up in Annapolis. Professionally, he writes and edits materials for business and political clients from his base of operations in Columbia, Maryland. He has a Ph.D. in Urban and Regional Economics. Leave a comment or feel free to send him an email to [email protected].