America has a huge deficit. Which candidate would make it worse?
Enough policies have been proposed to make a call
![collage featuring Donald Trump, Kamala Harris, the White House, and the Presidential Seal of the United States.](https://www.economist.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=1424,quality=80,format=auto/content-assets/images/20240907_FND002.jpg)
It is safe to say that neither Kamala Harris nor Donald Trump will win November’s presidential election by pledging fiscal prudence. The deficit and debt are afterthoughts for most Americans these days. And proposals from both candidates for cleaning up the country’s finances are fundamentally unserious. Mr Trump has talked about using cryptocurrency or drilling for oil in order to pay off the national debt—ideas that amount to utter nonsense. Although Ms Harris has vowed to reduce the deficit, she has declined to offer any substantive plan for doing so.
Explore more
This article appeared in the Finance & economics section of the print edition under the headline “Trump v Harris”
Finance & economics September 7th 2024
- China is suffering from a crisis of confidence
- As stock prices fall, investors prepare for an autumn chill
- Will interest-rate cuts turbocharge oil prices?
- American office delinquencies are shooting up
- Has social media broken the stockmarket?
- America has a huge deficit. Which candidate would make it worse?
- Why Oasis fans should welcome price-gouging
More from Finance & economics
![Solar panels installed on the roof of a building at Skardu in Pakistan's Gilgit-Baltistan region.](https://www.economist.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=1424,quality=80,format=auto/content-assets/images/20250215_FNP002.jpg)
Cheap solar power is sending electrical grids into a death spiral
Pakistan and South Africa provide a warning for other countries
![People walk at Zaryadye park with the Kremlin and St. Basil's Cathedral in the background in Moscow, Russia.](https://www.economist.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=1424,quality=80,format=auto/content-assets/images/20250215_FNP502.jpg)
Russian inflation is too high. Does that matter?
In a strong economy, price pressure can endure for a long time
![illustration of a house cut in half diagonally, the lower corner being a bill.](https://www.economist.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=1424,quality=80,format=auto/content-assets/images/20250215_FND001.jpg)
Why you should repay your mortgage early
For the first time in decades, the arithmetic suggests settling housing loans
How AI will divide the best from the rest
Optimists hope the technology will be a great equaliser. Instead, it looks likely to widen social divides
The danger of relying on OpenAI’s Deep Research
Economists are in raptures, but they should be careful
Elon Musk is failing to cut American spending
DOGE has so far disrupted everything in government bar the deficit