National debt has for decades been a go-to issue Republicans try to use to persuade voters against supporting social programs — an issue that has crept back to the forefront with new reports that annual interest payments serving the national debt now exceed what the U.S. spends on its military.
But a new analysis reported by Axios makes it clear Republicans have their blame in the wrong place.
According to the report, former President Donald Trump's contribution to the national debt "was significantly higher, according to the fiscal watchdogs at the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, thanks to both tax cuts and spending deals struck in his four years in the White House," reported Neil Irwin. In fact, Trump added almost double the amount President Joe Biden did: "Trump added $8.4 trillion in borrowing over a ten-year window, CRFB finds in a report out this morning. Biden's figure clocks in at $4.3 trillion with seven months remaining in his term."
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In fairness, both presidents had to contend with a massively expensive and short-notice public health response to the COVID-19 pandemic, making both spend far in excess of what they would have otherwise. However, Irwin continued, "If you exclude COVID relief spending from the tally, the numbers are $4.8 trillion for Trump and $2.2 trillion for Biden."
A large portion of Trump's responsibility for the national debt comes from his 2017 legislation slashing taxes, which cut rates across the board and are projected to accrue almost entirely to corporations and the wealthiest earners.
Biden, meanwhile, spent trillions of dollars on a bipartisan infrastructure package and the climate and health care expansion called the Inflation Reduction Act, but these programs were largely offset by tax increases and some of them even paid for themselves. Other expenses under Biden include changes to how food stamp and Medicaid benefits are calculated, and student loan forgiveness for over 4 million people.
Because the U.S. is in charge of the money supply its debt is denoted in, a concept known as "monetary sovereignty," it in theory has wide latitude to issue new debt without defaulting, assuming Congress continues to raise the debt ceiling. Excessive debt, however, can transfer money to consumers to spend faster than the supply of goods and services increases, causing higher levels of inflation. So while the U.S. doesn't necessarily need to pay down debt faster than issuing it, policymakers try to prevent it growing faster than the size of the overall economy.
"Deficit politics may return to the forefront of U.S. policy debates next year," noted the report. "Much of Trump's tax law is set to expire at the end of 2025, and the CBO has estimated that fully extending it would increase deficits by $4.6 trillion over the next decade."
