“The Greatest Suckers’ Rally of All Time”

As this is written we are about to hear Trump’s first address to Congress.  The market is on tenterhooks waiting to hear about tax cuts, infrastructure spend, border taxes and how he will Make America Great Again… There have been many comparisons to Reagan but as we have pointed out before, Trump has a completely different starting point despite what might look like similar fiscal policies.

So speaking of Reagan, lets hear from former Reagan Administration White House Budget Director David Stockman….

“I think we are likely to have more of a fiscal bloodbath rather than fiscal stimulus.  Unfortunately for Donald Trump, not only did the public vote the establishment out, they left on his doorstep the inheritance of 30 years of debt build-up and a fiscal policy that’s been really reckless in the extreme.  People would like to think he’s the second coming of Ronald Reagan and we are going to have morning in America.  Unfortunately, I don’t think it looks that promising because Trump is inheriting a mess that pales into insignificance what we had to deal with in January of 1981 when I joined the Reagan White House as Budget Director.”

And on this Trump sharemarket rally…

“This is the greatest suckers’ rally of all time.  It is based on pure hopium and not any analysis at all as what it will take to push through a big tax cut.  Donald Trump is in a trap.  Today the debt is $20 trillion.  It’s 106% of GDP. . . .Trump is inheriting a built-in deficit of $10 trillion over the next decade under current policies that are built in.  Yet, he wants more defence spending, not less.  He wants drastic sweeping tax cuts for corporations and individuals.  He wants to spend more money on border security and law enforcement.  He’s going to do more for the veterans.  He wants this big trillion dollar infrastructure program.  You put all that together and it’s madness.  It doesn’t even begin to add up, and it won’t happen when you are struggling with the $10 trillion of debt that’s coming down the pike and the $20 trillion that’s already on the books.”

And finally… THAT little problem on 15 March…

“I think what people are missing is this date, March 15^th 2017.  That’s the day that this debt ceiling holiday that Obama and Boehner put together right before the last election in October of 2015.  That holiday expires.  The debt ceiling will freeze in at $20 trillion.  It will then be law.  It will be a hard stop.  The Treasury will have roughly $200 billion in cash.  We are burning cash at a $75 billion a month rate.  By summer, they will be out of cash.  Then we will be in the mother of all debt ceiling crises.  Everything will grind to a halt.  I think we will have a government shutdown.  There will not be Obama Care repeal and replace.  There will be no tax cut.  There will be no infrastructure stimulus.  There will be just one giant fiscal bloodbath over a debt ceiling that has to be increased and no one wants to vote for.”

Let’s see what the Donald has to say today….