both confuse deficit with debt.
The deficit is what the government spends in excess of what it takes in every quarter or year or whatever time period you like.
The debt is the accumulated amount of what the government OWES... how much it has borrowed from people ( and governments ) all over the world.
Notice that Jesus Mike said that the DEFICIT would be lower... but he didn't say the deficit would be either zero or negative. In order to NOT ADD TO THE DEBT, the deficit would need to be zero or negative ( negative was last accomplished by... Bill Clinton ).
and to even have a lower deficit in coming years... he is counting on higher growth... like the sort of growth we had under Joe Biden. However, with the trade wars and tariffs, no one is projecting a huge growth spurt except for the proponents of "trickle down" economics... the magical thinking that IF you give the wealthy huge tax breaks... they will take the money and invest it in new plants to make more things... and hire more people... and magically the money will trickle down to the masses through better wages and more employment. Trickle down has never worked. Not once. Four things make up the basis for economic theory... capital ( money ), labor ( people looking for work ), material ( minerals, land, etc ), and DEMAND ( the desire for people to buy whatever you are making ). Many economists miss the DEMAND part of the equation. Adding money ( capital ) is just one part of the requirements... and it assumes that the rich will always invest their money to make more money. Economics is voodoo science... it depends on some tenants of human behavior... not like other science that depend on, say, gravity or chemical reactions... human behavior is not a constant that can be counted on. Sometimes the rich will just spend their excess new tax break money on private islands and underage girls.
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