The only way for the United States to solve the budget deficit is to “grow your way out of it” — even if that means a short-term rise, budget director Mick Mulvaney said Sunday.
In an interview on NBC News’ “Meet The Press,” the head of the Office of Management and Budget — once a budget hawk as a South Carolina Republican member of the House — staunchly defended the administration’s tax reform plan.
“I’ve come to the realization that Washington is not going to solve the debt problem, the deficit problem, through spending,” he said. “I had come to Washington in 2011 and hoped that would be the case, that we had a spending problem and not a revenue problem.”
“I think that's the only way you're going to get out of this is to grow your way out of it,” he added. “We're willing to have short-term tax and deficits in order to get back to that real healthy American economy. Remember, if you're 30 years old, you've never had a job as an adult in this country with a healthy economy, and we're trying to get back to that. “
Mulvaney also praised President Donald Trump for calling Sen. Charles Schumer, D-Calif., for help in new healthcare legislation.
“The president wants to get something done,” he said, adding: “So he's looking for folks who will work with him to help change that. We had hoped it would be the Republicans and the Senate. They failed twice to do that. Can you blame the president to sort of stand back and say, okay, if my own party can't deliver what I need, can I work with the other side?"
He also pushed back at NBC News’ explosive story that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had to be talked out of quitting last July, and that he called the president a “moron”— declaring Trump has confidence in him.
"I talked to Rex this week,” he said. “I spent a good amount of time with the president, and the topic never came up. I look back and say, Rex said it isn't true. The president said it's fake news. You ran the story because nobody else was doing it, so between you and the folks involved, I believe the folks were involved."