Trump: Budget will produce fastest growth ‘in decades’

President Trump on Friday told Americans to expect a huge boost to economic growth as a result of his budget, speaking publicly about his proposal for the first time since its release.

“We will grow our economy. It is growing already. It will grow faster than you’ve seen it in decades,” Trump said in his weekly address. 

“The budget we are proposing will reverse economic stagnation and build the path to millions of new jobs for American workers.”

The full budget plan, which was unveiled Tuesday during Trump’s first overseas trip as resident, assumes that the United States’ gross domestic product would grow to and stay at 3 percent within five years. 

{mosads}Economic experts have criticized the estimates as overly optimistic, coming in well above the 1.9 percent average growth predicted by the Congressional Budget Office. In the 1990s, considered a boom time for the economy, real GDP growth averaged 3.3 percent, and in several years surpassed 4 percent.

On Friday, the Commerce Department revised first quarter growth upward to an annualized 1.2 percent from a first estimate of 0.7 percent.

Trump’s remarks linked economic growth with increased defense spending.

“The big thing for me is economic growth, which is not possible without safety and security,” Trump said. “That is why our budget reverses years of cuts to our military, which have made us less safe in a more dangerous world.”

Trump said that his administration was getting rid of gang members by the thousands and giving immigration and border patrol “everything they need to end the lawlessness once and for all.”

Trump, who is still on his first official overseas tour, also suggested the U.S. was spending too much on international issues. 

“We need a government that spends on the right things, the safety security and well-being of our people, and stops the waste and abusive taxpayer funds, whether in America or in global projects overseas, of which, perhaps, there are too many,” he said.

“You’re going to love the end result.”