Trump Once Told Alex Jones Budget Would Destroy U.S. Unless Balanced
On the campaign trail, President Donald Trump told conspiracy peddler Alex Jones the United States would be no more unless it could find a way to balance the federal budget. The statement, made during a December 2015 interview, now stands in firm contrast to the budget proposed by the Republican’s administration that would add $7 trillion to the federal deficit over 10 years.
Speaking via video teleconference, Trump told Jones an anecdote about a campaign rally after which one woman questioned whether his talk about making Americans rich was “crass.”
“I said, ‘You know what, it might sound crass,’” Trump said. “‘But if we don’t make our nation rich again, we don’t take back our jobs from all these other countries that are ripping us, and if we don’t take back our money, and we don’t, you know, balance up our budget, at least get it damn close and soon, we’re not going to have a nation anymore.’”
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And in April 2016, Trump promised he would wipe out the country’s debt “over a period of eight years,” even though the U.S. has been carrying at least some debt since the 1830s, according to Bloomberg.
But the 2019 budget Trump sent to Congress Monday projects increased spending on both military and nondefense spending, and vastly blows up an already explosive federal deficit.
The $4.4 trillion budget for next year would increase the deficit by $984 billion in 2019, even with proposed cuts to programs like Medicare and budget reductions for federal agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency, The New York Times reported.
Military spending will increase by $195 billion and nondefense spending by $131 billion over the next two years. In turn, entitlement programs, like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, would be cut by $1.8 trillion.
The Trump budget also requested many of the projects that he promised while campaigning. The proposal included $1.5 trillion for rebuilding the country’s infrastructure as well as $23 billion for border security–an amount that includes $18 billion for Trump’s much-ballyhooed wall along the U.S. and Mexican border to prevent illegal immigration.
Trump touted the infrastructure plan Tuesday morning while taking a potshot at Democratic critics.
“Our infrastructure plan has been put forward and has received great reviews by everyone except, of course, the Democrats. After many years we have taken care of our Military, now we have to fix our roads, bridges, tunnels, airports and more. Bipartisan, make deal Dems?” the president tweeted.