Study: Trump’s defense plan would add $150 billion to deficit

The nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget said that Donald Trump’s newly revealed defense spending plan would cost roughly $450 billion over the next decade, but his cost offset plans would only cover two-thirds of that sum.

{mosads}On Wednesday, Trump proposed ending defense sequestration caps and increasing the size of every military branch in a plan that borrowed heavily from a Heritage Foundation proposal.

The CRFB report said the GOP nominee “outlines three major areas where he would generate savings to pay for his offsets — cutting unauthorized appropriations, reducing improper payments and underpaid taxes, and shrinking the federal workforce through attrition — though even generous estimates of these policies suggest they would only save about $300 billion over a decade. On net, this defense plan would cost $150 billion if additional offsets were not identified.”

“Trump also says ‘we will have at our disposal additional revenues from unleashing American energy,’ however he has previously earmarked this revenue for infrastructure spending,” the report reads.

Based on his old tax plan, the report adds, Trump is already on course to add $11.5 billion to the national debt, and that any deficit increase “is a move in the wrong direction.”

“Ultimately, much more will need to be done to pay for his plan and begin putting the debt on a more sustainable long-term path,” the report says.