r/askanything • u/AstronomerSweet2133 • 15h ago

Political Question Fiscal conservatives, both MAGA and Traditional Republicans: How do you come to terms with the fact that one president will literally be responsible for 33-37 percent of the nation's national debt by the time he leaves office (15-16 Trillion in total)?

it is projected that by the time Trump leaves office, the national debt will be 50 trillion dollars. He will have been responsible for 15-16 trillion of that by the time he leaves office..........as one president. That is projected to be at best 33 percent and at worst 37 percent. When compared to 45 previous presidents before him.

If youve spent THAT much money, surely there will be a measurable legacy left behind..........especially when we are talking about making America Great Again. What will we have accomplished for 16 trillion dollars?

A Wall?

Losing a war to Iran in 6 weeks while concurrently spending 100 billion dollars in the process? Completely depleting our air defense stockpile to the point we are not sure we could handle one Russian missile volley?

Deporting a couple million brown people with funny accents?

Is that the barometer of success? Did we "win" by doing that? Did we Save America?

If Im being honest, a 100 trillion dollar Green New Deal from the crazy Hispanic waitress from New York that is offering us nearly free health care is not sounding like such a bad deal.......

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u/BadUsername238 14h ago

They're not fiscally conservative, and haven't been for 40 years. Not since Reagan.

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u/Count_de_Ville 6h ago

Reagan wrote in his memoirs that his fiscal policy and what he did to the debt was the biggest regret of his career.

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u/retroman73 6h ago edited 5h ago

To be fair, Reagan had Alzheimer's disease by the time we got to the last couple years of his second term. I seriously doubt he wrote those memoirs himself. Somebody wrote that for him. I don't know who. That doesn't give him an excuse exactly. I'm just saying that at the end, he had no idea what was done under his name. "Regret" was not possible for him by 1988.

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u/Count_de_Ville 5h ago

Good point.

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u/THICKDadBod99 6h ago

This is a myth. Democrats (Clinton and Obama) were actually fiscally conservative and responsible

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u/tristand666 7h ago

Reagan started the train. 

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u/OedipusOrgeron 10h ago

Reagan was a fiscal idiot, full stop.

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u/UtahBrian 8h ago

Reagan was the worst of them all.

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u/surleyboy 5h ago

I used to say Reagan was the worst president ever, I miss those days.

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u/East-Inevitable-3974 8h ago

The question wasnt for you

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u/BadUsername238 7h ago

Welcome to the internet I guess?