The Trials Ahead for Pete Hegseth
.By Kim Beazley
The Trials Ahead for Pete Hegseth
Office of the U.S. Secretary of Defense
The trials ahead for Pete Hegseth
Donald Trump’s new defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, has enormous challenges ahead of him—challenges that could seriously affect Australia by upsetting key elements of our ally’s defence position, including its ability to deliver the Virginia class submarines that are so crucial to our AUKUS plans.
At the heart of problem is Trump’s hallmark tax cuts and the space he needs to clear in the federal budget to enable the cuts without driving the deficit much deeper into the red. The Republicans are aiming to get their program through Congress by bundling everything together into one or two big omnibus bills. This should help them manage their narrow majorities in the Senate and the House of Representatives, but it creates potential problems among the deficit hawks on their own right flank who will be stripped of the ability to debate the cost of individual programs.
This group of Republicans insist that changes to taxes and spending must be at least budget neutral. They are deeply disturbed by the fact that, since the end of the Cold War, government debt has grown from about 40 percent of GDP to 123 percent today and is still rising at about 9 percent per annum. Unchecked, it could get to about 195 percent of GDP by 2050.
https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2025/02/24/the_trials_ahead_for_pete_hegseth_1093326.html
