There are a few deluded souls who think that Trump will be signing off on a budget that lowers the deficit but that simply isn't the way politics works in these United States. Trump will cut benefits to the poor but not as much as he will cut taxes to the wealthy. He will increase the deficit he inherited while increasing the wealth of people already debating about whether to leave more money for charity or their kids in their will, people who won't even spend the extra money Trump will give them.
It could get much worse. One thing that few people - definitely not Trump - understand is that for every dollar of trade deficit, there is an offsetting dollar of financial inflow. It is accounting. And that means that our trade deficits with the rest of the world and the rest of the world's willingness to finance our debt are tied.
If Trump puts in place tariffs that lower trade deficits (an uncertain outcome but one he claims is his goal), it will actually raise the cost of debt as foreign capital inflows slow commensurate with a diminished trade deficit. Raise the cost of debt just as that rate of debt accumulation again rises.
Trump will cut benefits like Medicaid. Aid to the poorest. Some of those poor people voted for Trump, unclear they'd be losing benefits just for voting against immigrants and those trans people. But those budget cuts will be smaller than the cost of those tax cuts to the most affluent among us.
The gap between rich and poor will continue to widen. And the poor - still convinced that Trump policies have nothing to do with their poverty but convinced that they're brave warriors in a cultural war - will suffer more. And there will be yet another in a series of red bars that shoot upwards.
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