In a recent Washington Examiner op-ed, Sen. Rick Scott explained why he voted against Congress’ latest bloated budget deal: “It was an abdication of our moral responsibility to our children and our grandchildren.”
The senator from Florida is exactly right. Too bad he’s one of the only Republicans who cares.
President Trump is perfectly fine with signing away my generation’s financial future, apparently. At least, that’s how it appears, given that he has indicated he’s willing to put his signature on an atrocious budget deal that will make our national debt crisis even worse and screw over generations to come.
The deal raises the debt ceiling for the next two years, kicking the can down the road so that neither party has to take tough votes on spending close to the 2020 election. The budget also frees up $320 billion in new spending over the next two years, and only offsets a small portion of it.
Yes, with our national debt already at $22.5 trillion and counting, congressional Republicans and President Trump are completely abandoning fiscal conservatism and working with the Democrats to make things much, much worse.
Perhaps it’s because they know the consequences will fall largely on millennials and Generation Z and only come about after their terms are over. President Trump has basically admitted as much. According to the Daily Beast, he literally said, “Yeah, but I won’t be here,” when an adviser warned him about the coming debt crisis.
The president’s thinking is shameful and selfish, but it’s also true. The debt crisis is coming, but we won’t reach a federal public debt to GDP ratio of almost 100%, what many economists consider a catastrophic level, until 2028, at least four years after Trump is no longer in office. Meanwhile, annual interest payments on the debt will reach nearly $1 trillion by 2028 as well.
None of this will affect President Trump, so he just doesn’t care.
But the president is screwing over my generation. We’re the ones who will suffer through a recession when the debt bubble inevitably bursts and who will have to pay $1 trillion in taxes every year just to cover the interest payments on debt past generations accrued. Think about it: Our grandparents have maxed out their credit cards on a spending spree, and they’re leaving the bill, and the interest, for us and our parents to pay off. It’s a disgrace.
As the libertarian-leaning Sen. Rand Paul put it: “Both parties have deserted — have absolutely and utterly deserted — America and show no care and no understanding and no sympathy for the burden of debt they are leaving the taxpayers, the young, the next generation, and the future of our country.”
President Trump should ask himself: Do I really want that to be my legacy?
