Hillary and Trump Debate National Debt, Completely Ignore Its Main Driver

In sparring about the causes and remedies of the rising national debt, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton never once acknowledged the main driver of it during the first presidential debate: entitlement spending.

Instead, they exchanged barbs about taxes. Clinton argued that Trump probably didn’t want to release his tax returns because he didn’t pay any income taxes last year. “That makes me smart,” Trump quipped in return.

The Republican nominee then acknowledged we face a “$20 trillion debt” (actual number is just over $19.5 trillion as of this writing), and then came oh-so-close to getting to the root of the problem. Instead, he settled for just shaking a branch: “Politicians like Sec. Clinton” have “caused this problem.”

And that was it. No explanation about how politicians like Hillary Clinton voted for and enacted policies that drive up the debt. No explanation as to how he would be different as president. The personal barbs were as close as our two presidential nominees came to discussing our most pressing economic problem.

Hillary and Donald, meet reality: even if all the wealthy people in the United States making over $1 million a year gave all of their incomes to the federal government, it would make virtually zero impact on our national debt. Not even close.

Read the rest of this op-ed HERE.

If you like what you see, please "Like" us on Facebook either here or here. Please follow us on Twitter here.