When a young person asked what Hillary Clinton would do to tackle the ballooning national debt, the candidate blamed George W. Bush.
At an event in New Hampshire Thursday, Allie Nault, Miss America’s Outstanding Teen 2016, said she’s asking all the presidential candidates what they’re doing about America’s $18 trillion debt.
“Specifically, what will you do?” to tackle it, she asked the candidate.
“Let’s have a little historic context here,” Clinton responded. “When my husband left the White House, we had a balanced budget and a surplus and if we had stayed on a responsible fiscal path, we could of had we chosen, paid off our entire national debt.
“Unfortunately that was not the path selected by then President George W. Bush where he slashed taxes for the wealthy, he waged two wars without raising a penny to pay for them, the first time in American history that happened. And took his eyes off the financial markets and the mortgage markets and we know what happened and we fell into a great recession and it required spending money as you often have to in times of great economic contraction to be able to keep the economy going to to try to get it back on track.
“And indeed now our economy is going again. Our deficit is shrinking but we are left with this large national debt,” she said.
“So I think we should get back to sensible economic policies that put people to work, raise incomes and begin to lower our national debt.”
The candidate then pitched her website, while not offering any “specifics” as Nault had requested.
NPR reported in 2011 that when George W. Bush left office in 2009, the national debt stood at $10.6 trillion.
Hillary didn’t explain why the debt has nearly doubled under the current president — her former boss. Nevertheless, she concluded, “I think it’s important people appreciate our economy does better when we have a Democrat in the White House and we will be able to do more to deal with the national debt when I am president.”
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