Cramer-backed tax bill will help balloon debt to nearly 117% of U.S. GDP

Meanwhile Faux-Deficit Hawk Kevin Cramer gets a big laugh out of adding nearly $2 trillion to the national debt

(BISMARCK, ND) – It’s no secret the country’s debt crisis is growing – and fast. Yesterday, Bloomberg reported that U.S. debt-to-Growth Domestic Product (GDP) ratio is projected to reach nearly 117% by 2023. Former Republican Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan warned that the “unfunded” nature of the nearly $2 trillion partisan tax bill was cause for concern. Offering a little Econ 101, Greenspan advised Republicans to try “spending cuts first before you try to do tax cuts.”

Just last week, Republican U.S. Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee sounded alarms that the bill might be ‘one of the worst votes he’s made.’

Officials at the Federal Reserve and the Congressional Budget Office are skeptical that the GOP tax bill will stimulate substantial economic expansion, with GDP growth projected to shrink from 3.3 percent this year to 1.7 percent in 2020.

Highlights from the article below:

Bloomberg: U.S. Debt Load Seen Worse Than Italy’s by 2023, IMF Predicts

  • Mamma Mia! In five years, the U.S. government is forecast to have a bleaker debt profile than Italy, the perennial poor man of the Group of Seven industrial nations.
  • The U.S. debt-to-GDP ratio is projected widen to 116.9 percent by 2023 while Italy’s is seen narrowing to 116.6 percent, according to the latest data from the International Monetary Fund. The U.S. will also place ahead of both Mozambique and Burundi in terms of the weight of its fiscal burden.
  • The numbers put renewed focus on the U.S. deteriorating budget after the enactment in December of $1.5 trillion in tax cuts, and the passage more recently of $300 billion in new spending.
  • “The trouble, unfortunately, is it’s unfunded,” [Greenspan] said, adding that Republicans should have done “spending cuts first before you try to do tax cuts.”
  • “This president, obviously, is not a president that’s interested in fiscal issues,” Senator Bob Corker, a Republican from Tennessee, said in Washington earlier on Wednesday.