Donald Trump’s claim of being able to get rid of the $19 trillion national debt in only eight years has caused a mix of concern and amusement among economists. As The Washington Post pointed out;
“Most economists would consider this impossible because it could require taking more than $2 trillion a year out of the annual $4 trillion budget to pay off holders of the debt.”
Trump’s claim of being able to do this do this without cutting taxes, and without having detailed any substantial cuts of federal spending, has left economist dumbfounded.
Even Ronald Reagan, who doubled our national debt during his tenure at the White House, would find this plan laughable, as pointed out by Groopspeak.
Economic policy correspondents Jim Tankerslay and Jeff Guo went as far as calling Trump’s economic plan “science fiction,” and went on to analyze its problems.
They found that the U.S. GDP would need to grow somewhere between 13 and 24 percent every year, which is equivelent of doubling or even quadrupling the size of the U.S. economy in eight years, and concluded that such growth would be inconceivable.
“On the low end, 13 percent growth is double the annual growth that forecasters expect next year in China, a still-industrializing country. On the high end, 24 percent is well above the fastest recorded economic growth in modern America, 19 percent, which came in 1942 as the nation entered World War II.”
They also pointed out that the Federal Reserve wouldn’t allow such growth, because it would be accompanied by rapid inflation. The Fed would have to counter this by raising interest rates, which in turn would choke off the growth.
To show the absurdidy of Trump’s claim, they quoted Alan Cole, an economist at the Tax Foundation:
“It’s not consistent with historical experience […] It’s more consistent with a world where we’re hiring butlers for our vacation homes on Ganymede.”
Ganymede is a moon of planet Jupiter.
So according to the experts, Donald Trump’s impressions of the U.S economic situation just doesn’t seem to be properly anchored in reality, much like previous statements by the presidential candidate throughout the campaign.
H/t Groopspeak.
Featured image by Gage Skidmore. Permission to use under Creative Commons.
