February 12, 2025
White House refuses to explain why deficit is doubling: 'Talk to an economist'

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WASHINGTON – White House press secretary Karin Jean-Pierre called President Biden “fiscally responsible” on Tuesday – but could not explain the latest dismal deficit figures, dismissing her saying, “Talk to an economist. “

The Biden rep downplayed statistics indicating the federal deficit is on track to double this year, and attributed the weakening situation to “destabilising” factors – but then declined to be more specific.

Jean-Pierre claimed, “The deficit can be volatile from year to year, and that’s how we’ve tracked that, but the reality is that the president has a real plan to reduce the deficit, as We have told many times.” At his regular briefing in response to a question from a Time reporter.

The scribe asked, “After all, what is the reason for its growth? Why is the deficit increasing?”

Jean-Pierre replied, “I just said, it can be year-to-year – it can be very volatile.”

When challenged again for some reason, Jean-Pierre reiterated, “I just told you, it can be very volatile. …It’s like this, from year to year, it can be variable.”

A reporter from The Post interjected, “Why?”

He retorted, “Talk to any economist, and they can tell you specifically.”

White House press secretary Karin Jean-Pierre called President Biden “fiscally responsible” on Tuesday. AFP via Getty Images

The nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget has projected that the federal deficit for fiscal year 2023, which ends Sept. 30, will reach $2 trillion — more than that now, barring the COVID-19 pandemic. is the highest ever, despite repeated claims by the Democratic president that he has made progress. To reduce the annual shortfall.

Biden’s claims of reducing the deficit regularly draw criticism from fact-checkers as spending remains at near-record highs and most of the cuts since 2020 are due to COVID-19 emergency spending rather than his own actions. has happened since the end of

According to a Washington Post report, the increase in the deficit is due to factors such as an increase in federal spending and the imposition of higher interest rates to control inflation, which has increased the cost of US borrowing.

Jean-Pierre told reporters “we don’t think Republicans have a real plan to deal with the situation” – as House Conservatives rallied to pass a short-term spending bill this month to ensure spending cuts. have been

“Under this President the deficit has been reduced by more than $1 trillion, and he has signed legislation to cut the deficit by $1 trillion – so the President’s budget has been reduced by another $2.5 trillion by cutting wasteful spending on wasteful special interests. Big corporations and the wealthy pay their fair share,” argued Jean-Pierre.

“On the contrary, what you’re seeing from our Republican colleagues on the other side is that, you know — especially President Trump and the Republicans in Congress, what they did during their administration is they pushed for tax cuts. With the added $2 trillion in deficits it was clearly skewed towards the wealthy and big corporations.

“The president believes in pursuing his economic plan in a fiscally responsible way, and that’s why we will continue to do that here,” Jean-Pierre said.

The Biden rep ignored data indicating the federal deficit is on track to double this year.AP

Biden’s top spokesman also talked about Biden’s broader financial agenda.

“This is what we know for sure [the] The trickle-down economy doesn’t work, you hear us talking about it every time we talk [how] Bidenomics is building an economy from the bottom up, the middle out – that’s what the president plans to do, that’s what he’ll continue to do,” he said. ‘And that is what he is going to do in a fiscally responsible way.’

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“What I can speak to is what the President has done over the last two years – are we doing[w] The deficit was reduced by $1 trillion. He spent — he signed another piece of legislation where the deficit is going to be reduced by $1 trillion. That’s what the president is focused on, that’s why we believe Bidenomics is so important.”

Treasury Department figures show the deficit stood at nearly $1.61 trillion as of July — meaning it is already the highest it will see in 2020 and 2021.

The deficit grew from nearly $1 trillion during former President Donald Trump’s first three years in office to a record $3.1 trillion in fiscal 2020 as the government covered most of the country’s payrolls during the early stages of the pandemic.

Despite Democrats passing a $1.9 trillion stimulus bill with no Republican support in Congress, the deficit is expected to shrink to $2.8 trillion in fiscal year 2021, something critics say helped cause the worst inflation in four decades. Which reached an annual rate of 9.1% last June.

Harvard economist Jason Furman, a top adviser to the Obama administration, told the Washington Post that this year’s jump is tantamount to “major crises.”

“It is really amazing to see this in an economy with low unemployment. Nothing like this ever happened, Furman said. “A good and strong economy, with no new emergency spending – and yet such a deficit. The fact that it’s so big in one year makes you think that it must be some pretty weird thing going on.

The national debt has increased by more than $5 trillion since Biden took office, from $27.75 trillion to nearly $32.8 trillion. Under Trump, it grew from about $20 trillion to about $8 trillion.

Source: nypost.com

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