Donald Trump

Trump Team Stands by Budget's $2 Trillion Math Error

Experts say the numbers just don’t add up

President Donald Trump's newly unveiled budget contains a massive accounting error that uses the same money twice for two different purposes, NBC News reported. 

Based on its supersized projections of 3 percent GDP, the president's budget forecasts about $2 trillion in extra federal revenue growth over the next 10 years, which it then uses to pay for Trump's "biggest tax cut in history." 

But then it also uses that very same $2 trillion to balance the budget. 

Experts say the numbers just don’t add up. 

Former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers wrote on his blog, "It appears to be the most egregious accounting error in a presidential budget in the nearly 40 years I have been tracking them."

But White House budget director Mick Mulvaney said Tuesday he stands by the numbers. 

"I'm aware of the criticisms and would simply come back and say there's other places where we were probably overly conservative in our accounting," he said. "We stand by the numbers."

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