Deficit

Funny thing about the deficit: it’s only a crisis when Democrats are in power. The moment a Democrat walks into the White House, Republicans clutch their pearls and warn we’re teetering on the brink of national ruin. Suddenly, every dollar spent is a mortal threat to our grandchildren.

Personally, I don’t concern myself much with my grandchildren. I didn’t listen to my parents or grandparents, and I don’t expect they’ll listen to me either. Generations rarely do. We all insist on figuring out the world for ourselves, for better or worse.

We’re told we can’t afford healthcare, bridges that don’t collapse, or teachers who can afford their own rent.

But let a Republican sit behind the Resolute Desk, and all that terror vanishes. Deficits? Eh. Turn on the money spigot. Tax cuts for billionaires. Absolutely. A defense budget bigger than the next ten countries combined. No problem. Corporate subsidies, sweetheart deals, pork for donors? Roll it on through.

And the justification for it all, over and over, is that somehow, it’ll trickle down to the rest of us. Let me say it as plainly as possible: trickle-down is a dumb, stupid idea. And credit where it’s due: I picked up that perfect phrase—dumb, stupid—from my Chinese wife, the PhD, who uses it whenever she encounters nonsense. And there’s no better label for trickle-down economics than dumb, stupid.

Wealth itself isn’t evil. The problem is what people choose to do—or not do—with it. The problem is a system that lets a few gather staggering fortunes while pretending the country can’t afford to keep kids from sleeping in cars.

Economically speaking, trickle-down is supply-side voodoo. The idea is that cutting taxes for the wealthy and corporations will boost investment, increase productivity, and ultimately raise wages for workers. But in practice, what we’ve seen for forty years is the opposite.

Here’s what the wealthy actually do with their tax cuts:

Companies buy back their own stock to artificially inflate share prices, conveniently boosting CEO bonuses. Investing in hedge funds, private equity, and exotic financial instruments, they prioritize personal profit over job creation. They gobble up luxury real estate—New York penthouses, Malibu compounds, entire blocks of London—and drive housing prices so high that normal people can’t afford to live in their own neighborhoods. They stash money in art as a tax shelter. They buy private jets, yachts, islands, vineyards. And they funnel cash into lobbying and political games to tilt democracy to their advantage.

Consider the endless condos sold to anonymous shell companies—sometimes Russians, sometimes other oligarchs—who want to park money safely and, just as often, gain influence. Think about how Putin fancied Trump with the idea of a gilded condo deal in Moscow. That wasn’t just about stroking an ego. It was about moving American politics. For the wealthy and the powerful, real estate isn’t just property. It’s leverage. It’s a tool to buy influence, flatter egos, and intertwine foreign interests with U.S. policy.

And Trump didn’t just flirt with this world—he built his empire on it. Hotels, condos, licensing deals. Business entanglements from New York to Moscow to Istanbul. A private company shrouded in secrecy, bankrolled in suspicious ways, including by shady banks tied to Russian interests. And when he landed in the Oval Office, the corruption didn’t stop. He used his office to direct foreign governments and Republican donors into his own properties, billing taxpayers for Secret Service rooms, raking in millions while pretending he was “draining the swamp.” He installed family members in high-ranking posts and kept grifting right under the presidential seal. Even his inaugural committee became a vehicle for funneling money into his orbit.

Meanwhile, almost none of that billionaire money trickles down to higher wages, better benefits, or expanded operations that hire more workers. It stays locked in asset bubbles and financial games, enriching a tiny sliver of people while wages for normal folks stay stuck.

This is why wage growth has lagged behind worker productivity for decades. The gains go almost entirely to the top. Wealth inequality has ballooned to levels we haven’t seen since the Gilded Age. Meanwhile, government revenue shrinks, and the deficit explodes.

This isn’t new. It’s the same con Republicans have been running since the early 1980s.

Take Ronald Reagan. In 1980, he ran as the apostle of fiscal restraint, waving charts about big government. Then he got elected, cut taxes on the wealthy, and let deficits run wild. The national debt nearly tripled under his watch. Yet conservatives still talk about Reagan as if he were the second coming of Alexander Hamilton.

Then came George W. Bush. When Bush took office in 2001, Bill Clinton handed him a surplus. A real surplus. Economists were debating how a debt-free federal balance sheet might change bond markets and monetary policy.

Bush torched it. Two massive tax cuts—once again tilted toward the wealthy—sucked over $1.5 trillion out of federal revenues. Then came two wars, unpaid for. Then the Medicare Part D expansion, also unpaid for. By the time Bush left office, we were running trillion-dollar deficits, fueled in part by the 2008 financial collapse.

Did Republicans scream about the deficit then? Not really. Not until Barack Obama put his hand on the Bible. Then suddenly every Republican in Washington became a deficit hawk. The same folks who’d voted for unfunded wars and tax cuts were on TV scolding Obama for “spending us into oblivion.”

Cue the Tea Party, waving Gadsden flags and warning America was going under because poor people might get healthcare. Town halls turned into screaming matches about “mortgaging our children’s future.”

Regardless that Obama inherited an economy in freefall, with collapsing revenues and historic unemployment. Regardless that Keynesian theory—and most reputable economists—agreed that deficit spending was necessary to stop a second Great Depression. The narrative took hold: Democrats are reckless spenders. Republicans are the adults in the room.

Yet here’s the reality: under Obama, the deficit shrank dramatically. By his last year in office, the annual deficit was less than a third of what it had been at the height of the financial crisis. But that didn’t fit the Republican script.

Then came Donald Trump. For all the crocodile tears Republicans shed about Obama’s deficits, they didn’t hesitate to blow up the budget the moment they were back in power. In 2017, Trump signed a tax cut package worth nearly $2 trillion over a decade, most of it going to corporations and the wealthy.

Republicans promised those cuts would “pay for themselves.” They didn’t. Revenues dropped. The deficit surged past $1 trillion again in 2019—even before COVID showed up.

And let’s not pretend COVID spending alone explains it. Sure, the pandemic forced both parties to spend big. But even before that, Trump’s fiscal record was a mess. Republicans barely raised an eyebrow.

And that’s just the budget side. On the corruption side, Trump was busy milking his presidency for personal gain. Foreign governments booked rooms at his hotels. Lobbyists threw galas at Trump properties. He tried to host the G7 at his own resort. His charities were shut down for fraud. He offered pardons like party favors to cronies and political allies. And he left office under a mountain of criminal investigations that, to this day, keep piling up indictments for fraud, hush money, classified documents, and attempts to overturn an election.

Then Joe Biden took office, and like clockwork, Republicans rediscovered their horror at deficits. The same senators who’d rubber-stamped Trump’s tax cuts were suddenly deeply concerned that Biden wanted to rebuild bridges, expand healthcare, or help parents keep the lights on.

This is not economics. It’s political theater.

Republicans run up enormous deficits—especially for tax cuts aimed at the rich—and then pound the table about fiscal restraint the moment Democrats propose investments that might actually help normal people.

Meanwhile, trickle-down keeps getting hawked like a miracle cure. Let’s be clear: trickle-down has failed every test. When you hand billionaires a tax windfall, they don’t sprinkle it around the economy. They stash it. They buy yachts and private islands. They buy condos—the kind Putin dangled in front of Trump as a golden carrot—not just for show, but for moving American politics. They rig the tax code to keep even more. Normal people never see that money. Wages stay flat. Costs keep rising. And the deficit grows.

But here’s a point too few politicians admit: the meaning and significance of the national debt are in dispute among serious economists.

Politicians love scaring voters with raw debt numbers. But good economists—from Keynes onward, through Paul Krugman today—emphasize that debt has to be judged relative to GDP, interest rates, and the economy’s productive capacity. The U.S. has never truly “paid off” its national debt. After World War II, we let economic growth and inflation shrink the debt-to-GDP ratio rather than trying to erase it dollar for dollar.

So yes, deficits matter. If debt grows faster than the economy, interest payments can crowd out other priorities. But the U.S. is not a household. We issue our own currency. We borrow in dollars. We have flexibility other nations simply don’t. Much of the alarmism around deficits is political theater meant to block social spending.

And here’s what devastates me: we have the real resources—the kind Adam Smith described in The Wealth of Nations—to give every American a good life. We produce enough food to feed everyone. We can build enough housing so no one has to sleep under a bridge. We can fund schools, hospitals, and roads. We could all—all—be well-fed, sheltered, educated, and secure.

Yet for reasons that frankly escape me, we refuse to do it. Or more precisely, Republicans—and the entire authoritarian spirit I call PrumpTutin—refuse to do it. They’ll pour trillions into tax cuts for people who already have more money than they could spend in ten lifetimes. But the moment someone proposes feeding kids, building affordable housing, or ensuring healthcare for normal people—which would prevent neglect and abuse of children who suffer most when society fails—they suddenly claim we “can’t afford it.”

And let me say again—for the record—that I don’t fret much about my grandchildren. I didn’t listen to my parents or grandparents, and nor will they listen to me. That’s human nature. The kids will make their own choices, as we all did. What I do care about is kids who are hungry today, families who can’t afford a place to live tonight, or teachers working two jobs because billionaires need another tax break.

That’s what enrages me most. This isn’t just about numbers. It’s about human lives. Children go hungry, families sleep in cars, schools crumble—all while billionaires buy super yachts and Putin fans Trump with the promise of a gilded condominium designed for moving American politics. That’s not fiscal prudence. That’s moral failure. It’s abuse of children, if not with fists, then with indifference.

Regardless, we need honest conversations about what’s economically sustainable. We should spend wisely. We should tax fairly. And we should stop pretending deficits are only dangerous under Democrats while Republicans—and the PrumpTutin crowd—get a blank check to blow holes in the budget for tax cuts that help precisely the people who don’t need help.

Trickle-down is a dumb, stupid idea. And pretending deficits are anything other than a political weapon is equally dumb. Politicians will keep spinning their tales. My advice: stop listening to politicians. Listen to economists. Good ones. Otherwise, we’ll keep playing this same dumb, stupid game forever—while real people, especially children, keep paying the price.