(Reuters) - The U.S. will effectively address its debt crisis by allowing inflation to rise slightly even though it may negatively impact savers and lower- to middle-income households, SkyBridge Capital founder Anthony Scaramucci said on Wednesday, taking a contrarian view to one of the most polarizing economic debates ahead of the Nov. 5 U.S. election.
Concerns of a technical default and the threat of a recurrent debt-ceiling standoff were worsened after the U.S. government reported that its budget deficit for the fiscal year ended Sept. 30 rose 8% to $1.833 trillion from the fiscal 2023 figure, the third-largest federal deficit in U.S. history.
"There's a lot of people who think that the U.S. is about to enter into this tremendous debt crisis. And I believe that we're going to solve ... that and we're going to stop that from happening," Scaramucci told the Reuters Global Markets Forum.
Scaramucci's remarks deviate from several market participants who have increasingly expressed worries of U.S. debt sustainability amid threats of another sovereign rating downgrade.
The debate also gained momentum after market forces estimated that Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump's economic plans would add twice as much debt as those of his election opponent, Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris.
"I like the Harris plan better. My Wall Street contemporaries don't," said Scaramucci, a U.S. financier who briefly served in the Trump administration. "They've put trades in the marketplace with the high expectation that Donald Trump is going to win the election."
A possible second Trump administration has also fuelled bets of a resurgence in the prices of cryptocurrencies, with bitcoin inching closer to a record after the former president vowed to make the U.S. "the crypto capital of the planet."
As we near mid-2026, bitcoin will reach $170,000, Scaramucci said.
"I believe it's coming, and again, I'm talking about a threefold rise in 18 to 24 months. I don't think that's impossible for this asset, given the fixed limited supply, and what I think is very high demand," he added.
Bitcoin, the world's largest cryptocurrency, last traded at $71,865. It has risen 69% so far this year.
(Join GMF, a chat room hosted on LSEG Messenger, for live interviews: https://lseg.group/3TN7SHH)
By Mehnaz Yasmin
Editing by Paul Simao
