Democrats Don't Want Eliminate the Budget Deficit

"Leftism is just a project of government spending"

By Chuck Warren

Cut to the chase: Democrats do not want to eliminate the budget deficit or cut down our national debt. A friend recently told me that Democrats are pathological liars on this issue and many others. I disagreed.

Why? While pathological lying is a pattern, frequent and often excessive, they are not consciously aware they are lying. What Democrats do regarding the budget deficit and national debt is to lie for strategic and specific purposes. It's intentional and deliberate, not pathological.

They have zero desire to balance our books. Two examples:

First, Republican presidential budgets were rejected on the spot.

When have you not heard or read a Republican president's budget submitted to Congress declared "dead on arrival" by Democrats? Think Reagan, Bush 41, Bush 43 and Trump. The story is always the same..."Damn heartless Republicans want to hurt the most vulnerable!"

Here is a perfect example, just change the year.

NBC News reported in May 2017, "Lawmakers Declare President Trump's Budget Proposal 'Dead on Arrival.'" With lawmakers (mostly Democrats) "saying that the cuts are too steep and the accounting is too unrealistic. Lawmakers said the document, which reflects the president's broad vision, will go nowhere in Congress.

Trump’s proposal, which is the more complete version to the “skinny budget” the White House released in March, seeks to dramatically cut programs for low-income Americans while exponentially increasing defense spending. It also makes drastic cuts to environmental protection programs, agriculture and a host of other programs that senators say go too far."

Hence, "cuts are too steep" — one of the primary ways to balance the books — is always off the table in their minds.

Second, Democrats desire to raise taxes.

Democrats oppose the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) with every fiber of their soul. They go on screeds attacking DOGE as careless, drastic and cruel, but usually toss in the throwaway statement, "of course the government needs to be more efficient." This is not pathological lying, it's strategic dissimulation. If they cared about "government efficiency" they could have worked on that when they controlled the presidency and congress when President Biden was elected.

As my co-host Sam Stone relayed to me, he has been shocked about how the "breadth of how much leftism is really just a product of government spending." So while Democrats roll out their strategic and tired old lie that "Trump wants tax cuts for his billionaire friends and increase our deficits," what they really want is to raise taxes to continue spending. They have no desire to cut the budget deficit or reduce the national debt. They want to keep feeding the federal bureaucracy. It is a means of holding power.

How do we know this? Most Congressional Democrats can pass third grade math. They know raising the taxes they want does not do the trick.

In fiscal year 2024, the federal government ran a deficit of $1.8 trillion, $138 billion (8%) more than in FY2023.

The Democrats’ plan to solve this budget crisis is to raise taxes and propose some mythical budget cuts they never specify—except for national defense, which now they are all now apparently neocons.

So how much revenue do their tax increases bring in?

Using AI overview, here are the results:

• Estimates Vary: Different analyses and proposals yield varying estimates of potential revenue from taxing high earners.

  • Tax Foundation: The Tax Foundation estimates that Vice President Harris' proposals would increase taxes by about $4.1 trillion from 2025 to 2034.

  • Other Estimates: Some analyses suggest that raising taxes on the wealthy could generate about 1.0% of GDP over 10 years.

  • Billionaire Minimum Tax: The Treasury Department estimates that a billionaire minimum income tax could generate about $500 billion over 10 years.

• So let us be generous and say their tax increases raise $4.1 trillion over nine years - it will not, but let us pretend for math challenged friends it does. Dear taxpayer, based on current spending trajectory, that gives annual deficits of $1 trillion annually after the optimistic new tax revenue comes in. So our national debt will increase another $9 trillion.

Reality: we need budget cuts. They know this.

Even if the United States' GDP grew at 4.5% over ten years and spending was limited to inflation, the budget deficit would not be balanced. Tax increases do not solve the budget deficit.

And in reality, because we are realists, we will probably have to raise some taxes. For example, Social Security is one program where this may have to happen. As the USA Today wrote, "Increasing or eliminating the payroll tax cap would give Social Security billions of dollars to put toward future benefits. But it's not enough to permanently resolve the program's funding issues."

So even increasing or eliminating the payroll tax cap for Social Security, will not resolve the "programs' funding issues." This is the perfect case study on what tax increases can accomplish.

However, you will never hear one Democrat discuss reforms or cuts to save Social Security — this is their philosophy on all government programs and spending.

You will hear Democrats yap about the last time we balanced the budget was when a Democrat, Bill Clinton was president. True. However what they always forget to add is he had a Republican Congress with leadership of Newt Gingrich, Dick Armey and Tom DeLay. Are you dishonest enough to believe that President Clinton would have had balanced budgets if they were not in the majority?

Addition and subtraction, math is a stinker for the dishonest. Democrats will continue to lie about how to solve the problem because they don't want to solve the problem.

Note: the opinions expressed herein are those of Chuck Warren only and not his co-host Sam Stone or Breaking Battlegrounds’ staff.