Attempting to outflank Trump's right, now-official presidential candidate Ron DeSantis declared Monday on "Fox and Friends" that "Our country was careening toward bankruptcy, and after this [debt] deal, our country will still be careening toward bankruptcy." So he's agin' it.
In his first major test of presidential thinking, DeSantis showed himself to be utterly without principle, responsibility or reason. By 5 June, says the Treasury, the country will be in default, its economy will careen into chaos and rippling destruction, and the world will suffer equally.
No prudent, conscientious candidate for the U.S. presidency would conceivably entertain such a global calamity. So you can toss DeSantis into the Trumpian well of Ayn Randian nihilism.
He pulled this remarkably clownish stunt because Trump, so far, "has stayed quiet" (NYT) on the debt-limit deal. His Truth Social entries are all about his sublime polling leads and what a hopeless stumblebum Gov. DeSantis has been. Not a word about the most pressing issue facing the nation today.
Of course Trump hasn't any room to lecture anyone on debt and deficits. (Not that that will stop him tomorrow, Q.E.D.) He was bequeathed a deficit of $590 billion. The first year of his presidency, it rose to $670 billion. Then $780 billion in 2018, then $980 billion, with his administration winding with an eye-popping deficit of $3.13 trillion.
Much of that was covid relief, but his idiotic 2017 tax cut accounted for much of it as well. "In all," writes the Times, "Mr. Trump added $7.8 trillion in deficit spending over 10 years through legislation and executive orders during his four years in office."
Hence DeSantis plans to attack his main rival on his affinity for debt — but he's doing so in the most reckless way: opposing a deal, whatever its merits or demerits, that will at least foreclose on default and disaster.
Trump, coward that he is, appears likely to wait until the deal is done. Then he'll rag on it. DeSantis has simply chosen to demonstrate his unpresidential thinking beforehand.
If his fiscal approach were to be characterized in its truest form, it would have a big red nose, a fright wig, big floppy shoes, and be carrying dynamite.