BUDGET/DEFICIT/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “Here’s a headline you might have missed amid the onslaught of news about Julian Assange, William Barr, Nipsey Hussle and Michael Avenatti: ‘US budget deficit running 15% higher than a year ago.’ The story cites this monthly report from the Treasury Department detailing these few eye-popping facts: 1) The budget deficit grew $146.9 billion in the month of March alone. 2) The deficit for this fiscal year is now $691 billion — a 15% increase (or roughly $100 billion) from where we were at this point in 2018. 3) Treasury is projecting that the deficit will surge over $1 trillion by the end of the fiscal year in September. To which, our politicians have responded: :/ ‘Nobody cares,’ White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney reportedly told a group of Republicans who wondered why President Donald Trump wasn’t going to mention the ever-growing deficit in his State of the Union Speech earlier this year. That’s a massive change from where Trump, Mulvaney and the rest of the Republican Party were on the dangers of debt and deficits just a few years ago.”
–Chris Cillizza, “SURPRISE! The budget deficit is soaring!,” CNN Politics, CNN.com, April 11, 2019 8:00 pm