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Spending And the Deficit


Issue Summary
The Deficit is the amount of money spent by the U.S. Government in any given year that exceeds the amount it collects in tax revenue. The National Debt is the total amount of all Deficits of all the years, net of any surpluses. Congress is responsible for creating the spending bills and the senate than approves and the President signs the bills into law. In the absence of any budgets that are passed by Congress, Congress issues Continuing Resolutions (CRs) that approve small spending portions to keep the government operating.
Spending And the Deficit - Deficit.png

Liberal Position

When Obama took office the National Debt was less than $10 Trillion.  When Obama left office the National Debt was $19.5 Trillion.  Obama increased the national debt more than all the other presidents since George Washington Combined.  He averaged a deficit of $1.1 Trillion per year.  A major component of the deficits was the passing of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) and the $1 Trillion bail out of the banks, passed by Obama in his first year.

Since Congress and the senate was controlled by the Democrats, there was no horse trading, and they were able to pass massive budgets in the early years. However, when the Republicans took controll of congress in the later years of Obama's presidency there were no budgets passed, just Continuing Resolutions.  Budgets were not passed because the Republican Congress would pass a budget, but the Democrat controlled Senate would not even vote on the budget, hence nothing ever made it to the president's desk.

When Biden Took Office, there was a Democrat controlled congress.  They passed two of the largest spending bills in the history of this nation.  First, was the American Rescue plan, which was a second spending bill for COVID.  The second was the Inflation Reduction Act, which, as Joe Biden said, it was a Climate Bill and not an inflation reduction act. 

Except for the Pandemic, the US has never seen such deficits under Biden.  And the Deficit in 2024 is expected to be $2 Trillion.

Conservative Position

With any debt comes interest.  With the additional $10 Trillion of Debt added by Obama, that automatically increased the spending and deficit each year by over $300 billion.  Even considering that burden Trumps average deficit was $818 Billion - which is $300 billion less than the average under Obama.

Despite still reducing the deficit, Trump spent aggressively on military in an effort to catch up for short falls in prior decades, getting our troops the equipment they need to assure their safety and our protection.

Trump also reduced taxes to stimulate the economy which resulted in the largest amount of collections to the IRS in April in May of 2019 then ever before.  

With a Democrat controlled Congress, the budgets passed by Congress include a signficant amount of spending that the President did not really want, but in an effort to work together, he did sign them to keep the government open.

For 2024, Donald Trump is tapping Elon Musk to perform and audit of the Federal Government.  This will reduce spending by 50% and get us back on the path to a balanced budget.  Elon Musk was able to trim 80% of the costs of Twitter to reduce the cost of operating that organization and is confident he can trim the fat in the Federal Government.

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