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Nor are Republicans willing to consider tough deficit-cutting steps such as higher taxes or Pentagon budget cuts. Leading Democratic presidential contenders talk of “Medicare for All” and increasing Social Security benefits instead of curbing them.

“You have to get pretty damn serious about revenue as well as defence spending, and those are two things the Republicans don’t want to bring into the conversation,” said Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill. “My Democratic friends who talk about expansion of benefits. I’ve told them to ‘get real.”‘

Trump has never gone to the mat for his plan to slash domestic spending such as renewable energy programs.

“If Trump can be criticized I think the perception has been that he has not fought for the spending cuts that he’s proposed,” said former Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C. “There’s no upside to trying to cut anything. There’s no political reward. But if you cut something there’s a lot of political downside.”

Neither is there any reservoir of the political will and bipartisan trust required to take the political heat for the tough steps it would take to rein in deficits. And it’s not like voters are clamouring for action.

“There’s been very little dialogue in the last several years about debt and deficit and how to really be able to address it,” said Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla. “It just never came up” in the 2016 election. “It still doesn’t come up.”

The deficit registered US$714 billion during Trump’s first year in office but is projected to hit about US$900 billion this year, according to the Congressional Budget Office, which says Trump’s tax cut will add US$1.5 trillion to the deficit over 10 years.

“One of the short-term goals should be — I know it’s not a lofty goal — stopping things from getting a lot worse. It’s something the Republicans obviously were unable to do. That’s a low bar, but they couldn’t meet a low bar,” said Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md.