GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump proposed tackling the national debt by doing “the right job” purchasing drugs for Medicare and creating a “dynamic economy” on Friday’s “O’Reilly Factor” on the Fox News Channel.
When asked why the national debt was a problem, Trump said, “[W]e’re getting to be a large-scale version of Greece. we never do cutting. we never do anything. you know, I saw a statistic the other day, the — we’re the biggest purchaser of drugs in the world. Drugs, to make people better, for Medicare, et cetera, et cetera. We buy drugs. we spend the same, practically, as if you’re going to go buy drugs on a counter — from a counter, we spend the same. we could have saved $300 billion a year if we did the right job with the purchasing just of drugs. This is one item.”
Trump was then questioned on how he would bring down the national debt. He responded, “We have a country with no growth. We have no growth.” He later added, after host Bill O’Reilly cut in to ask how this bring down the debt, “[W]e’re going to create a dynamic economy again. We’re going to bring the jobs back from China, from Mexico, from Japan.”
O’Reilly again asked how this would bring down the debt, to which Trump answered, “Because the country is going to start growing, and we’ll be up to 4 and even 5%, and when we do that, we pay it back so easily. It’s easy to pay it back.”
O’Reilly then asked Trump how it would be easy. Trump stated, “Because essentially, if you look at the country like a profit-making corporation, or a losing corporation, right now we’re a losing corporation. We’re going to make it a profit-making corporation.”
O’Reilly then said, “OK, but then you’re going to have to raise taxes to get more money in to pay down that debt.” Trump responded, “The problem we have is our taxes are so high, that nobody can — everybody’s choking.”
O’Reilly then asked how even with more economic growth, he would pay down trillions of dollars in debt. Trump said, “[L]isten, the politicians have caused this problem. We’re going to make our country dynamic again. Now, companies, big companies like Pfizer, are leaving. they’re going to make it worse. They’re leaving. Many — it’s called corporate inversion. Many companies are leaving because the taxes are so high. We have to lower taxes, not raise taxes.”
He added, “[T]he country will be more dynamic. It’ll be a dynamic — we are going to create a dynamic economy, where real jobs are going to be pouring into the country, and we’ll have a country that’s sustainable. It’ll work, Bill.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
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