President Joe Biden nailed this one
Somehow, Republicans are still trying to embrace the label of fiscal conservatism even though they’ve never really practiced it much. The former guy was just the latest Republican president to run up the deficit by a record amount. He’s also the third consecutive Republican president who has left office with a recession for his successor to deal with.
This is usually the inevitable result of things like record corporate tax cuts, that have become a staple of their platform since the Reagan years. This time, however, there is good reason for Donald Trump’s successor to brag about one thing: President Biden is currently overseeing the largest deficit reduction in history. Over $350 billion was shaved off the deficit last year, with record job creation. Now, from a debt that peaked at over $7.8 trillion over the Trump years, the U.S. is on track to reduce the deficit by $1.3 trillion in 2022.
Deficits are only a priority for the GOP whenever Democrats are in power, so they can use them as an excuse to gut the social safety net. This year is hardly an exception – as Republicans are already trying to blame President Biden’s budget for inflation – something they clearly have no plan to do anything about. Whenever they complain, you can quickly point out that it was in fact Republican policies that got us to where we are – pandemic or no pandemic, as the economy was heading toward recession nearly a year before the GOP mishandled that – with a 50% increase in the national debt.
James Sullivan is the assistant editor of Brain World Magazine and an advocate of science-based policy making