Mirrors, smoke, sleight of hand, trap doors or false walls and distractions, these are the tools of the magician’s disappearing act. But a real-life wizard’s most powerful tool isn’t a gadget, it’s his audience’s willingness to suspend disbelief.
At least that might begin to explain how Donald Trump and most Republicans in Congress have taken the budget deficit and national debt — once their unifying doctrine — and made those concerns vanish. One day, it’s a crisis of unfathomable proportions. The next? It’s something to deal with in the future. Maybe. Possibly.
But aren’t things going great now?
This is not mere hypocrisy. No, this is beyond that. It’s a dazzling display of how an entire political movement, the tea party, can be nurtured, promoted and then entirely subverted.
This incredible disappearing deficit worry has never been more pronounced than this week as congressional leaders seek support for the two-year bipartisan budget deal recently made with President Trump. The agreement raises spending by $300 billion and while some hardcore deficit hawks have complained, their criticisms aren’t exactly stinging — or especially loud or prominently played on conservative media. Meanwhile, the deficit has already been ballooning and the national debt has reached a record $22 trillion thanks to another $1 trillion deficit projected for this year.
What should be especially alarming to those folks who used to care about deficit spending is that debt now exceeds the gross domestic product, which hasn’t happened since World War II.
As a candidate for president, Mr. Trump once boasted that he would eliminate the deficit in eight years. Yet it’s only gotten worse even as the post-Great Recession economic recovery has continued. If the deficit can’t be reduced under these circumstances, when can it? Mr. Trump is tweeting about how his economic approval rating should be 100% favorable. “Best stock market, economy and unemployment numbers ever!”
Interest payments on the debt are rising and it could get much, much worse. In the current fiscal year, it’s expected to be $393.5 billion or 8.7% of all federal spending. It’s actually been a bigger percentage of spending before but that’s only because interest rates are so low right now.
What happens as they rise? As we noted when Mr. Obama was in the Oval Office, the best recourse would be to attack the problem from both directions, limiting the growth of spending while closing tax loopholes and, in some cases, raising tax rates (we’re looking at you, federal gas tax left unchanged since Bill Clinton was president). But who wins an election by being non-magical?
Voters have a habit of supporting candidates who promise the reality they most desire, not the one that’s actually possible.
This editorial appeared in The Baltimore Sun. It should be considered another point of view and not necessarily the opinion or editorial policy of The Dominion Post.
