Hillary Clinton’s Bad Promise on Debt
'Hillary Clinton has made the American public a promise she shouldn’t keep. . .
Describing her policy proposals, including infrastructure projects and paid family leave, she guaranteed that they would all be paid for. Then she went further, promising, “I am not going to add a penny to the national debt.”
She repeated it to a much wider audience a few weeks later. “I have said repeatedly throughout this campaign, I will not raise taxes on anyone making $250,000 or less,” she told the crowd. “I also will not add a penny to the debt.” She repeated the new vow two more times during the evening.
Promising to pay for policy proposals is nothing new in a presidential campaign. Fiscally conservative members of Congress may be more likely to go along with a new program if there’s a way to cover its cost, so it can be politically wise. The American public consistently rates the national debt as a top concern. Not to mention that Mrs. Clinton is a Democrat, and polling shows that voters assume that means she is poised to go on a reckless spending spree with government funds once in office.
But it is economically foolish to swear off all deficit spending. Mrs. Clinton is going further than simply promising to cover a new idea with increased tax revenue. She’s promising that she won’t put forward plans that add to the national debt. . .
A better promise than Mrs. Clinton’s no-debt vow would be something like this: “I will not significantly run up the national debt to pay for projects that won’t make the economy grow.” That’s more honest and more sound, and it would leave her free to make necessary policy decisions in the White House. But it’s not as neat a slogan, and that makes it a much harder sell.'
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/31/opinion/campaign-stops/hillary-clintons-bad-promise-on-debt.html?
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