Deficits fade as campaign issue

The two presidential nominees have at times paid lip service to deficits. Trump jabbed at Obama for letting the national debt grow under his watch, while Clinton argued Trump’s tax plan would “explode” the debt.

But that was about it, with candidates keeping their focus on other matters like infrastructure and defense spending, economic inequality and immigration.

One reason for the lack of political urgency is the improvising deficit picture.

Gone is the record $1.4 trillion deficit of 2009, when tax receipts collapsed in the storm of the financial crisis. The deficit as a percentage of GDP peaked in 2009.

The deficit was down to $487 billion over the last 12 months, and now stands at 2.6 percent of the nation’s economy, according to the Treasury Department.

“The deficit is not a problem today. The debt is not a problem today,” said David Wessel, director of the Hutchins Center on Fiscal and Monetary Policy at the Brookings Institution. “There’s no public angst.”