Page 11 - Spending Side News Today

They are spending their money, including the department of defense. do you remember the $400 hammers and other misspending, or overspending? i dont think any part of the federal government should be immune from that kind of scrutiny. when i was at hud, that was certainly a concern for us, to make sure that we were trying to spend money in a responsible wa way. if there was a program or initiative putting resources into, one of the things was trying to measure how effective that measure was. if i...

Nobody wants to tell their supporters -- >> theres adults in washington? >> yeah, i mean -- >> ive given up. >> douglas is making a very important point. you ultimately need growth to balance budgets. that was the magic of the clinton period. you have the deficit down by growing. how do you grow, particularly at the end of an economic cycle? recovery cycles tend to last about a decade. were over ten years into this one. the trump administration will say, hey, we said wed get higher growth last y...

Responsibility. trying to now its the opposite. why? catherine rampell, three questions. help me. youre the one with the intelligence on this. first four months, fiscal year 19. federal deficit, $310 billion, up $176 billion year-over-year. why? >> there are a few things going on. one of course as you mentioned is the tax cut. despite what was promised, the tax cuts sadly did not pay for themselves. wouldnt you know? we cut taxes, and tax revenues fell. so thats snake oil, still not working. but...

Often you think fiscal responsibility. trying to keep things small. now kwliits the opposite. why? katherine, three questions. first four months fiscal year 19, federal deficit, $310 billion, up $176 billion year over year. why? >> there are a few things going on. one, of course, as you mentioned is the tax cut. despite what was promised, the tax cuts sadly did not pay for themselves. wouldnt you know, we cut taxes and tax revenues fell. so that snake oil still not working. not only the tax cuts...

Trillion. this has risen in less than a year and thats because of the tax cuts. economists say this is a troubling trend. they say this could have far-reaching consequences for the future. when you look that the, are you worried? >> absolutely. thats why im a proud, fiscal conservative. i voted against the budget deal because i do not believe increasing spending -- it will only exacerbate this problem. the bottom line is blaming it all on tax reform, lets be truthful about the revenues and reven...

I will say on the spending side, we have seen a number of stories, going back to my time in the white house, how some resources were spent, vendors, a friend of the first lady was a key player organizing a lot of the things and millions of dollars spent through that entity. these are stories we have seen trickle out over the last six or eight months and maybe worth lifting up the hood to see if there was impropriety as to those vendors. i have no reason to believe theres any impropriety. just as...

Identified. those top five vendors accounted for much of the expense but they are looking at whether top donors are paying for access to the new administration, to the incoming administration. tell us about that. >> we understand that the investigation basically has two prongs, one seems to be examining the spending side of the funds and the other is on the donor side of the funds. its not uncommon in washington to have a situation where you have donors who then get some sort of preferential tre...

His central campaign promise. he knew full well, number one, might bring and did bring pat buchanan. and two, could end his political career. yet he thought it was critical he do it. why? >> i have rarely seen anyone agonize offer a decision as much as he did about that decision. we had rising budget deficits at the time. they were predicted to double over the next two years. he felt like he had very few alternatives but to get the best deal he could. in fact, he got a good deal from his standpo...

Revenues we took in as a government set a record this year. theyll set another record next year. did we see corporate earnings drop a little bit? yeah. to be expected when you lower corporate rates. in the long run we see them go above where they were going to be. the total revenues arent the problem. the spending side of the problem is the problem and thats why it has been the message of the president for the last couple of weeks congress needs to spend 5% less across the board next year. >> bi...

With a 5% cut. get rid of the fat. get rid of the waste. thats a very, very important request that im making of everybody sitting around the table. >> that was the cabinet meeting yesterday. trump added some people at table could cut substantially more. the deficit is up 17% this year to $779 billion. thats the highest, the worst, since 2012 when the country was spending to stimulate the struggling economy. it is not necessarily the spending side of the equation, but taking inside of the equatio...