It’s official: the Trump administration spent $1 trillion more in 2019 than it raised in revenue. That deficit is 50% larger than the deficit in 2017, which was President Trump’s first year in office, and represents the first calendar-year deficit to top $1 trillion since 2012. Annual deficits will only grow worse in the coming decade, in large part thanks to the $2 trillion tax cut Trump signed into law in 2017 and a similarly-sized tax and spending deal he signed at the end of last year (over a quarter of which was added to the national debt).
With trillion-dollar annual deficits stretching into the future indefinitely, will Democrats address this generational challenge in their Presidential debate? There sure is an appetite for it: when I had the privilege of speaking with students at the New England College Convention in New Hampshire last week, they expressed deep concern about the rising national debt they’re poised to inherit and how the Democratic candidates would pay for their proposals.
Unfortunately, these issues haven’t been raised in any of the more than 500 questions asked throughout the last six presidential debates. The seventh debate on Tuesday night presents one last opportunity to change this dynamic before the Iowa Caucus.
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