David Stockman: Trump Will Create a Debt Crisis Like Never Before
While President Trump is expected to tout his administration’s accomplishments one month into his term during a speech before a joint session of Congress Tuesday night, former Reagan Budget Director David Stockman said he doesn’t see much progress being made.
“I’ve thrown in the towel because he’s not paying attention and he’s not learning anything and he’s making ridiculous statements,” Stockman told the FOX Business Network’s Neil Cavuto.
During the address, Trump is expected to talk about the new budget blueprint, which Stockman said doesn’t add up.
“We don’t need a $54 billion increase in defense when the budget already is ten times bigger than that of Russia. We don’t need $6 trillion of defense spending over the next decade because China is going nowhere except trying to keep their Ponzi scheme together.”
President Trump will also talk about the GOP replacement for Obamacare. Stockman said he wasn’t sold on Speaker Ryan’s plan.
“If you look at the Ryan draft that came out over the weekend, it’s basically Obamacare-like. It’s not really repealing anything,” he said. “It’s basically reneging and turning the Medicaid expansion into a block grant, turning the exchanges into tax credits [and] it’s still going to cost trillions of dollars.”
Last week, Trump’s Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, told FOX Business the administration is “focused on an aggressive timeline” to produce a tax reform plan by August, but in Stockman’s opinion, tax reform won’t happen this year. He also warned that the administration’s run up against the debt ceiling this summer could lead to a debt crisis.
“I don’t think we will see the tax cuts this year at all,” he said. “There is going to be a debt ceiling crisis like never before this summer and that’s what people don’t realize. They’ve burned up all the cash that Obama left on the balance sheet for whatever reason.”