“That's really something,” Bernstein said in an e-mail. “I gotta say, he makes numerous good, important points: low interest rates means servicing the debt is less costly and that this would be a smart time to emphasize productivity enhancing investments over debt reduction. But just to keep it real, let’s not forget that due to the massive revenue losses in his tax plan, it would be impossible to make these investments.”
Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a former director of the Congressional Budget Office and economic policy adviser to Republican John McCain's 2008 presidential campaign, cast doubt on the viability of Trump's old and new positions.
“Under current law, the debt will rise by 50 percent ($14 trillion to $21 trillion) by 2024,” he said in an e-mail. “He has proposed an enormous tax cut, promised to not touch either Social Security or Medicare, and is committed to bigger defense spending. His initial promise was preposterous and would not happen. This one is dubious as well.”
The federal government had $18.2 trillion debt outstanding at the end of the last fiscal year on Sept. 30, 2015, according to the Treasury Department. In order to even start to pay down the debt, the government would have to completely eliminate its annual budget deficit and run a surplus. Budget experts say it will be hard enough just reducing red ink. Getting rid of it entirely in any sort of reasonable time frame is considered virtually impossible. The Congressional Budget Office projects that the deficit will be $534 billion in the current fiscal year.
The U.S. last ran a surplus from 1998 through 2001, under President Bill Clinton, amid circumstances that are unlikely to be repeated. The U.S. benefited from a so-called peace dividend after the end of the Cold War, which held down military outlays. Revenues, meanwhile, were boosted by a stock market bubble that inflated capital gains. Prior to that, the U.S. had run deficits for 28 straight years.