Trump’s budget director Mick Mulvaney says that this might be the last year we could get on a path to a balanced budget within 10 years without cutting benefits for Medicare and Social Security.
After surveying the deficit, debt and ever-engorging federal entitlements from his corner office at the Eisenhower Executive Building for the better half of four months, Mick Mulvaney has arrived at a simple conclusion: Fiscal problems, like mold or cancer, are easier to manage the earlier you address them.
During a sit-down interview with the Washington Examiner on Wednesday, Mulvaney urged Congress to accept the White House’s budget because it might be their last shot at a balanced budget without serious cuts to entitlements.
“The longer you wait to address a problem, the more you have to turn the dials to fix it. You could make a very small change now,” Mulvaney suggested, pointing to modest entitlement changes inside Trump’s FY 18 Budget, “and you could have a fairly large impact.”
From the center and the left, there’s been a rush to decry Mulvaney’s budget as draconian, describing marquee cuts to disability insurance and food stamps as gutting the federal government. On the right, fiscal conservatives grumble that the budget doesn’t tackle entitlements immediately.
Photo credit: zimmytws/Shutterstock.com