The Republican-controlled White House is advocating a tax plan that would add to a deficit, a stark departure from GOP messaging over the years.
White House Budget Director Mick Mulvaney said on CNN Sunday that he hoped President Donald Trump's ever-evolving tax scheme would add to the deficit, arguing that without a deficit the country won't spur growth.
“I’ve been very candid about this. We need to have new deficits because of that. We need to have the growth,” Mulvaney said. “If we simply look at this as being deficit-neutral, you’re never going to get the type of tax reform and tax reductions that you need to get to sustain 3 percent economic growth.”
This statement was a blatant flip for Mulvaney, who in January said that the national debt had reached a limit that required conservative spending going forward.
“Our gross national debt has increased to almost $20 trillion,” Mulvaney said when he testified before the Senate Budget Committee in January. “That number is so large as to defy description. I choose to look at it another way: To an ordinary American family, that translates to a credit card bill of $260,000. Families know what that would mean for them. It is time for government to learn the same lesson.”
Trump and his advisers seem determined to maintain the 3 percent economic growth America saw last quarter. But some fiscal conservatives in the Republican Party are wary that Trump's tax cuts for the wealthy will only hurt the country's debt. Sen. Bob Corker said Monday that he won’t vote for a tax bill that adds a penny to the deficit, according to Bloomberg.
House Speaker Paul Ryan said on CBS's "Face the Nation" that Trump's tax reform package would not add to the nation's debt.
"This will have to be a deficit-neutral bill," he said.
Ryan apparently hasn't had a conversation with Trump's budget director.
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