'Who the hell cares about the budget?': Trump tears into critics of mounting federal spending and debt under his watch
Joseph Zeballos-Roig

- Trump tore into critics of rising government spending and mounting debt under his watch, The Washington Post reported.

- "Who the hell cares about the budget? We're going to have a country," Trump reportedly said at a Friday fundraiser at his Mar-a-Lago estate.

- The comments offer a remarkable window into Trump's approach to federal spending as the debt and deficits have increased every year he's been in office.

- Republican calls to rein in federal spending and curb the deficits have largely died down.

President Trump ripped into critics of rising federal spending under his watch, according to leaked audio files of a lavish fundraiser held at Mar-a-Lago on Friday.

"Who the hell cares about the budget? We're going to have a country," Trump said, according to The Washington Post, which published the remarks over the weekend.

The Post reported that he bragged about increasing the defense budget by at least $2.5 trillion, a sum that could be attained after adding several years' of government defense spending. The Pentagon's budget for the 2020 fiscal year totals $738 billion.

He also spoke about the dramatic events surrounding the killing of Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani earlier this month and ridiculed environmental concerns, the report said.

The freewheeling comments offer remarkable insights into the president's approach on federal spending and the debt, which barreled past $23 trillion late last year.

Trump campaigned in 2016 on eliminating the federal debt in eight years and reining in the deficit, a key concern of Republicans throughout President Obama's two terms in office. They often accused Democrats of being excessive spenders, which racked up the deficit.

However, Trump veered the opposite direction as president, and Republicans tempered their previous criticism.
The 2017 tax cuts blew up the federal deficit, which neared $1 trillion in fiscal year 2019 - a 26% jump from the year before as it steadily increased every year in office.

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act will cost $1.9 trillion over the next decade, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Trump also signed a $1.4 trillion budget in December that boosted defense spending.

The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a nonpartisan budget watchdog, estimated earlier this month that Trump's spending priorities will pile an additional $4.7 trillion onto the debt through 2029.

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he promised to balance the budget.

Saw a statistic yesterday - and not from some crazed, loony, left wing source - that figures the U.S. will be $5 trillion deeper in debt at the end of his first term. The sad thing is nobody, especially on the Republican side gives a shit. They're even talking about more tax cuts.

Not to mention eliminate the debt within 8 years.

He was referring to his own personal debts?

LOL!!!!

This is something the Democrats REALLY need to push.

Since his net worth may be negative and all his loans are backed by Russia that may be easier said than done.

unfortunately, they don't have a lot of credibility on this issue.

more than Republicans, mind you, just not much.

Vlad has the answer. A wee favour here , a wee favour there...

From my FB feed

“Dear Republicans,

The rest of us are wondering why you all are okay spending $300 million a day in Afghanistan for a total of $6 trillion but are all the sudden all bent out of shape about spending $3.5 trillion on infrastructure here at home?

Another thing that has most of us really confused is how you all claim to be ‘fiscal hawks’ after Reagan quadrupled the national debt.

Then, Dubya doubled it again and Trump added more to the national debt than any president ever.

Did you know that of the $28.5 trillion national debt, Republicans are responsible for the vast majority of it?

Why is it that you all spend money like drunken sailors in a Bangkok bordello when you all are in office and the moment you’re out of power you transmogrify into ‘fiscal hawks’ trying to act like you are the party of ‘fiscal responsibility’?

If your incessantly wrong claim about Republicans being ‘good for the economy’ then can you explain to the rest of us why Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee are all competing in everything awful like teen pregnancy, illiteracy, health, health insurance coverage and the very worst economies in the country?
You know how you all will never shut up about how awful everything in California is? Well here’s a newsflash, California is the 5th largest economy in the world with billion dollar surpluses after Arnold left billion dollar deficits.

What we’re all really wondering is if you ever get sick of being wrong about literally everything or not?

You have no ideas about making anything better because you’re entirely illiterate when it comes to economics and whenever you make a grievous mistake like cutting taxes, you inflict wounds on the nation because you are against everything.

Roads and bridges are falling apart clear across the nation and it takes taxes to maintain them, but every single moron you elect doesn’t want to do a thing about maintaining our infrastructure.

Remember how Trump had the senate and the house and kept saying it was ‘infrastructure week,’ and you all couldn’t even put a bill together to spend a single nickel on fixing it?

Now, Joe is trying to do something about it but Mitch McConnell filibusters everything for no reason at all other than to show what happens when human garbage makes the most craven political trull in American history the leader of a party so corrupt and ripe with sedition that you all will close your eyes and stick your fingers in your ears and act like you didn’t see what happened on January 6th.
Well, *we* all saw it live and here you all are providing historians with prima facie evidence of the worst human treachery seen in the 21st century.

You have gone so far into the lunatic fringe that you are willing to die to own the libs — instead of taking a safe and effective vaccine after 700,000 of your fellow Americans have died.

What’s it going to take for you to jack-hammer off your nauseating hypocrisy and become responsible citizens interested in preserving our Republic again?

Because while you’re busy being fools, the Chinese have built 28,000 miles of high speed rail using interest they make from us because the perfectly designed imbeciles you elect borrow money as fast as they can instead of taxing billionaires and billion dollar companies.
How’s that working for you?

Do you like waking up every single day wondering what new level of imbecility either Lauren Boebert or Marjorie Potatohead will reach by merely opening their mouths?

That's what Trump did to your party, it's full of lunatics who are fighting a war against science. Well keep on keeping on because that's only cutting your numbers and alienating you further from the younger generations who will make sure you all go the way of the Dodo.”

- Thomas Clay Jr