Not Much Attention on Spending Reform or National Debt at Political Conventions

The Republican National Convention (RNC) and the Democratic National Convention (DNC) have both concluded, with taxpayers kicking in $50 million on security costs for each, and the campaign for President is now in that limbo period where nothing is really supposed to happen until the debates[1]. However, there are a lot of issues that the candidates could and should be talking about. Three issues in particular that are critical, but have been largely ignored by Secretary Clinton and Mr. Trump, are tax and spending reform and the national debt. While the candidates have made comments on these issues in passing or during interviews, the focus throughout this campaign so far has lacked a meaningful conversation on taxation, spending and the debt. The conventions were no exception.

The Republican National Convention

The Republican National Convention was held in Cleveland, Ohio from July 18-21 which featured a litany of themes and speakers. While much of the convention was focused on issues of security and law enforcement, many of the headliners were speakers that focused on Mr. Trump’s biography. The word debt was only uttered twice in the Republican nominee’s acceptance speech, and only one of those two times was that a reference to our national debt.  In terms of spending, Mr. Trump did mention that he would ask federal agencies to submit a list of wasteful spending projects within his first 100 days. While that sounds nice, those lists already exist from members of Congress like Sens. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) and James Lankford (R-Okla.) and in Inspector General and Government Accountability Office reports. A speech that was historic in terms of length was not very substantive on spending and debt. Republicans missed an opportunity to get back to being the party of smaller, more efficient government. Sad!

The Democratic Convention

The Democratic National Convention was held in Philadelphia, Pa. from July 25-28. This event also consisted of various themes and speakers. Overall the DNC was meant to highlight Secretary Clinton’s experience.  Once again, the substance of the actual acceptance speech from the Democrat nominee was lacking in any kind of talk of spending or tax reform. In fact, the word spending did not even appear in Secretary Clinton’s speech even once. She mentioned student loan debt and the debt she accused her opponent of having, but never once mentioned the national debt. The word deficit was also missing entirely. While Secretary Clinton may want to claim the mantle of breaking the glass ceiling in Presidential politics, her speech did not present any new ideas on spending reform or the debt.  The only talk of spending was made by Bernie Sanders who gave a list of new spending programs.  Not helpful at all.

We were unpleasantly surprised by the Republicans lack of discussion on these topics.  And, quite honestly, we didn’t expect much from the Democrats, so their lack of dialogue wasn’t surprising.

Voters deserve a real discussion about tax and spending reform and real talk about how to lower and eventually eliminate the debt.  Unfortunately, all voters have been getting (from both sides) is a campaign filled with personal attacks that have focused on what the candidates ate for dinner and who wrote their spouses speeches. This is unacceptable. The national debt is more than $19 trillion and the deficit that will be left to whichever person is elected President will be $600 billion. The economy is growing at the slowest pace for a “recovery” since WWII. 94 million people are out of the workforce and the Labor Participation Rate is the lowest in decades. Why should voters care about trivial issues like a tweet? 

There are less than 100 days left until voters go to the polls to cast their ballot for the next President. Before they make a decision they should know where the candidates stand on the issues that are actually important to our future and our national security. They are not getting that information right now, and with time running out on the clock till November 8 it is time for real questions to be asked by the media and for people who want to be the leader of the most powerful nation in the world to start answering those questions seriously.

[1] With Donald Trump’s loud non-filtered comments and Hillary Clinton’s campaign e-mails being hacked anything could happen at anytime.