Ledger · 2016 campaign · № 42

Balance the federal budget "fairly quickly"

Never delivered
“[paraphrase] We can balance the budget fairly quickly.”
Promised
, Campaign interviews
Stated deadline
“fairly quickly”
Re-promised
8 times with a fresh deadline
Topic
Economy & prices
Era
2016 campaign

What happened

The deficit grew every year of the term, from $585 billion in fiscal 2016 to $984 billion in fiscal 2019 and $3.1 trillion in fiscal 2020. PolitiFact rated the promise broken, noting the deficit was growing rather than shrinking.

Sources

  1. Balance the federal budget 'fairly quickly' PolitiFact Trump-O-Meter, Jul 15, 2020
  2. Trump's Final Numbers FactCheck.org, Oct 8, 2021