Unable to formulate and execute real policies to reduce the national debt, Donald Trump claims economic growth will “very easily” solve the shortfall. John Tsitrian recognizes that airy wish as more Trump bullshit:
Soon after the recent announcement that the U.S. national debt topped $40 trillion, President Trump was asked by reporters what he was going to do about it.
The president’s dismissive answer? “The way you take care of debt is with growth … we’ve never had growth like we have right now … the growth will take care of that very easily.”
No one challenged him, but the fact is that Trump’s response began with a lie.
At 2.2%, our current economic growth rate is about average, not nearly as strong as Trump makes it out to be. More relevant — and what Trump failed to mention —is the fact that our debt has been increasing faster than our growth rate [John Tsitrian, “Trump: Growth Will Fix National Debt. Reality: In Your Dreams, Mr. Prez,” South Dakota Standard, 2026.09.28].
Tsitrian cites experts at the Wharton School, the Council on Foreign Relations, and the Government Accountability Office who say growth won’t take the place of real fiscal discipline. Add J. H. Cullum Clark of the George W. Bush Institute:
Can’t America grow its way out of the national debt?
Very likely no. We estimate America’s economy would have to grow roughly between 5% and 6% per year for the rest of this century – compared with about 2% per year over the past three decades – to stabilize the nation’s debt-to-GDP ratio at something like today’s 100% level, based on a simple model using standard federal government assumptions regarding spending, tax revenues, and interest rates. While it’s possible that AI and other significant innovations will boost economic growth to rates faster than we’ve experienced in the 21st century, it’s far too early to project rates as high as 5%. Most economists expect a positive but much more modest acceleration as a result of AI [J.H. Cullum Clark, “Lessons from History on America’s National Debt: Frequently Asked Questions,” George W. Bush Presidential Center, 2026.09.25].
You won’t get fiscal discipline or better economic growth out of Trump. It’s time to lame that duck, retake Congress, and rein in the bad decisions and corruption that are imperiling America’s fiscal health.
This belief in growth as the magic bullet for all economic woes is another reason businessmen/women are a poor choice for social leadership (and Trump being a TERRIBLE businessman doesn’t help the cause). A nation is not a business; it is not a family’s checkbook. Growth helps Wall Street, and since a Reagan’s trickle-down economic voodoo, not many others. But that is the limited ecosystem of the business/investor class.
AI to the rescue. Democrats stay out of the way as usual. Those MAGA communists will screw things up.
I think Trump’s daily info intake path has been shown to us over the past couple of months. Idea-man Stephen Miller calls helper Natalie Harp over at the White House and decide what Trump needs to think about that day. She keeps him on track, and Miller keeps laying foundation infrastructure for the Heritage Foundation, and his own nazification efforts. This has got to have a major intervention asap.
Most readers know that back in 2018 this interested party declared that with the help of James Comey Hillary Clinton threw the 2016 election so Donald Trump could destroy the Republican Party. I believe she knew that had she won, the Republican House would have impeached her over her husband’s connection to Jeffrey Epstein and the US Senate removed her before the 2018 midterms, a President Tim Kaine would have met an untimely end before naming a Veep and Paul Ryan would become POTUS.
If Trump doesn’t die in office he most certainly will die in jail or under house arrest but racist anarcho-capitalist, domestic abuser and likely incel Shad Olson is calling for the ultimate retaliation against those who want Donald Trump to earn his eternal reward even earlier than that. Olson simply wants to blow it all up since such is today’s Republican Party.
Larry Kurtz – wow, lots to add to my list of “never gonna happen”. HRC was pretty sincerely shocked that she’d lost to Trump. Early defections from Trump in the GOP didn’t happen until Covid, and a frank assessment of the party’s disarray at Trump’s loss. The real destruction of the GOP began in the run up to the Jan 6 insurrection, and the feckless collapse of party leadership when Cheney led a lone campaign to oust the orange nightmare. It has been a mafia of fear since then which must be dismantled by whatever means necessary.
baby steps.
Byron vs kristi for VP
rounds stuck w/ USPS he neutered-dump that bozo.
MO sen schmidt-another bozo not ready for prime time. future VP
dusty-no different than kristi. not ready for prime time; repubs repeat the mistake
grdz-thinks he’s cute. just another bozo
john boy. thinks trump’s cheap reprocessed ads at public expense are cute too
lame don duck trump. ugh. war monger. liar. criminal of high crimes
The national debt will only be discharged if the Congress cuts funding to practically everything, like Medicare, Medicaid, Education, all the social welfare programs, food stamps, social security, farm subsidies, CRP payments, you name it. Stop paying for everything except national defense and interstate highways.
Don’t complain about the national debt and then tell us we need free school lunches, free child care, universal health care, student loan forgiveness, free-everything-you-want.
They’re pointing out that the national debt only seems to matter when Dems control the White House. Tell us another health care anecdote.
“No one challenged him”. Sounds on brand for the press pool. Constitutional right aside, it wouldn’t matter that much whether they’re there or not.
They never call him out in the moment he’s drifting in and out of sleep either.
The national debt will only be discharged when we tax the richest and the investor class at higher, more fair, rates. Cuts in bloated defense spending and government welfare to thriving businesses would also help.