Debt King Trump, Bridge Builder Clinton Equal Bigger Deficits

The U.S. looks set to rack up bigger budget deficits in the coming years, no matter who is elected president.

With Donald Trump declaring himself the "king of debt" and Hillary Clinton promising to "build tomorrow’s economy," the next administration seems likely to put more emphasis on fiscal largesse than on financial rectitude.

If it occurs, it would bolster the confidence of Federal Reserve policy makers in the staying power of the expansion and make it more probable they’ll raise interest rates by a full percentage point next year, according to Lou Crandall, chief economist at Wrightson ICAP LLC in Jersey City, New Jersey. Central bank officials in March penciled in four quarter-percentage point rate increases for next year after two planned for 2016.