Deficit

"Less than 30% of the Budget is Discretionary spending"

True. 2019 budget discretionary is $1.4T of $4.7T or about 29.8%.

Point?

Interest on the national debt is another $0.5T, leaving $2.8T mandatory.

Is the point that we should cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid (Half of which is long-term care of the elderly)? Those 3 programs cost $2.2T of the $2.8T mandatory budget.

Or do you want to eliminate tax credits like EITC and Child Tax Credit? Those are $120B. Why are tax credits to the poor and middle class counted as spending, instead of just reductions to net revenue? Capital loss tax credits aren't accounted as spending.

Or do you think we should cut pensions for retired military and other government workers?

I'd love for Republicans to run on that platform.

The stuff Republicans like to focus on cutting, like food stamps ($68B), TANF ($17B) and section 8 housing ($30B; which I personally would love to see eliminated) amount to less than 3% of the budget.

Before the 1965 creation of Medicare and Medicaid, mandatory spending was less than
30% of all federal spending. At that time, Social Security accounted for about half of all
mandatory spending. Discretionary spending is now at a historic low as a proportion of total federal outlays,

"Closing to $1 trilion good job.

Of which $700 billion will be for mandatory democrat programs

Yes, Obama presided over the slowest recovery in our history and left our military in disarray.

Inflation adjusted deficits.

2009 $1646.85 Billion Deficit
2010 $1483.94 Billion Deficit
2011 $1444.94 Billion Deficit
2012 $1198.26 Billion Deficit
2013 $730.4 Billion Deficit
2014 $512.14 Billion Deficit
2015 $462.03 Billion Deficit
2016 $609.38 Billion Deficit
2017 $678.57 Billion Deficit
Source: Whitehouse dot gov - Historical Tables (Table 1.1)

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Closing to $1 trilion good job.

Less than 30% of the Budget is Discretionary spending

PerfectMatch69->
"Every major city and state gives some form of a tax cut for stimulus, in the form of Tifs or Economic Zones because it works."

Beggar they neighbor. One does, then they all have to.

"If you want to make a dent in the deficit, you have to have a strong economy first"

But the president said this is the already the strongest economy, like, EVER. If we're running $1 trillion deficits during the strongest economy ever... wow... what will the deficit be if we have a recession?

"You can't simply tax your way into prosperity."

Correct. You need people with money to spend it. Spending creates economic activity and therefore prosperity.

"Obama about doubled the debt. Let's see what happens after the Trump economy has some time to thrive."

So far, Trump's growth numbers aren't as good as Obama's. Of course, that is all timing and not policy. Just like Obama's huge deficits the first few years were the timing of having to clean up the bad private sector debt of 2005-2008, Trump's having trouble getting GDP and job's growth, because the economy already recovered under Obama.

Bottom line is that debt will continue to increase at 3x the sustainable rate until we 1) Attack and reverse the trade imbalances created by Reaganomics or 2) the excess debt collapses into global depression. If it isn't private sector adding that debt, then it will have to be the federal government.

not republican forte anymore...lol

Every major city and state gives some form of a tax cut for stimulus, in the form of Tifs or Economic Zones because it works.

If you want to make a dent in the deficit, you have to have a strong economy first. You can't simply tax your way into prosperity. Obama about doubled the debt. Let's see what happens after the Trump economy has some time to thrive.

The correct analysis:
We know about 10% of GDP ($19T, so call it about $2T) worth of money will "leak" out of active circulation in the economy due to imbalances created by Reaganomics (free international trade and too low top income tax rates), so total debt has to increase by at least that same $2T or the money supply will shrink and the economy will slow.

Knowing the federal government was going to explode its deficits to fund $150B a year in tax cuts to billionaires, the Fed raised the prime rate to 2.5% (historically very low) to attempt to slow private sector debt/money creation. However, since the economy appears to perhaps be slowing, it seems the Fed may have overdone the interest rate hikes and slowed business and household debt creation by too much.

So now, despite the federal government adding $1T a year new debt/money to the economy, we're going to have to lower interest rates below 2.5% to ensure businesses and households add at least the other $1T new debt/money creation to get the full 3x-sustainable-rate new debt creation needed to keep the economy from crashing for a little while longer.

Certainly, there can be nothing wrong with debt increasing at 3x the sustainable rate forever, right?

Once upon a time, a prime rate of 6-7% was considered normal. Then 5%. Then 3-4% was enough to slow a run-away bubble.

Now 2.5% is too high.

Half of the developed world has interest rates below the inflation rate.

Perfectly normal... nothing to see here... let's not make and drastic changes, like returning to the tax code of the 1950s-1960s that created the middle class.

Before anyone blames Democrat takeover, the fiscal year began in Oct 2018, before mid-terms and are the result of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, signed into law Dec 2017.

"The US deficit is projected to surpass $1tn in 2019, the largest it’s been outside of the four-year period following the Great Recession.

The new record, previously expected but made official in the White House Office of Management and Budget’s newly released mid-year review, subtitled 'Promises Kept, Taxpayers First,' is in direct contrast with Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign promise to wipe out the deficit."

But, of course, everyone knew that Trump was lying.

They voted for him despite being a liar because he promised to deport all the brown people, ban Muslims, allow you to say racist things and empower the white supremacists to come out into public.