EDITORIAL: Trump deficits continue to balloon national debt

Nearly three years into his first term, President Donald Trump can tout successes on a variety of fronts. His administration persuaded Congress to pass the first significant overhaul of the tax code in more than three decades, allowing the vast majority of Americans to keep more of their own hard-earned money. Mr. Trump honored his campaign promise to attack the administrative state, easing unnecessary regulatory burdens. He also successfully nominated scores of constitutionalist judges to the federal bench.

Meanwhile, the economy hums along with jobless numbers at record low rates. Opportunity abounds for those who seek it.

Amid all these accomplishments, however, sits a glaring failure.

On Friday, the Treasury Department announced that the federal budget deficit for fiscal 2019, which closed Sept. 30, came in at a whopping $984 billion. That’s not quite Barack Obama territory — he oversaw historical annual budget holes exceeding $1 trillion during four of his eight years in office — but it is nevertheless a mountain of red ink that compounds the skyrocketing debt and exacerbates the nation’s dangerous fiscal trajectory.

On the hustings in 2016, Mr. Trump bragged he could eradicate the national debt after two terms in the Oval Office. In practice, he has all but abandoned any semblance of fiscal restraint. During Mr. Trump’s first three years as president, the government has spent almost $2.3 trillion more than it has taken in.

Democrats will quickly finger GOP tax reform as the culprit, but that’s partisan poppycock. As Eric Boehm of Reason.com pointed out this week, the Treasury “reported that corporate tax revenue was up 12 percent over the previous year, while overall tax receipts rose by about 4 percent.” Outlays, however, increased 8 percent. Washington has a bipartisan spending problem, not a revenue shortfall. This has been true dating to the 1960s.

In the past, Senate and House Republicans might at least make an effort to tap the brakes on congressional profligacy. Unfortunately, budget hawks are increasingly an endangered species in the Trump GOP — and they’re nonexistent on the other side of the aisle. Consider how the Democratic presidential candidates are in a bidding war to see who can more quickly bankrupt the nation by handing out trillions in free stuff.

Democrats control the House, so any effort by the administration to dial back spending will be a tough slog. The impeachment circus will also dominate for the coming months. But if President Trump hopes to cement a positive economic legacy, he must commit to the task of spending restraint rather than simply offer hollow boasts and promises.