What did I say and what did I do – and what do I say now?
Trump and Biden: The National Debt
JUN 24, 2024
The national debt is on course to reach a record share of the economy under the next presidential administration, due in part to policies approved by Presidents Trump and Biden during their time in office, including executive actions and legislation passed by Congress.
While it is important to understand the fiscal impact of the promises candidates make on the campaign trail – particularly because they reflect the candidates’ own policy preferences and are not impacted by unexpected external events or the actions of Congress – the fact that both leading candidates have served as President also allows for a comparison of their actual fiscal records. This analysis focuses on the estimated ten-year debt impact of policies approved by Presidents Trump and Biden around the time of enactment.1 In this analysis, we find:
- President Trump approved $8.4 trillion of new ten-year borrowing during his full term in office, or $4.8 trillion excluding the CARES Act and other COVID relief.
- President Biden, in his first three years and five months in office, approved $4.3 trillion of new ten-year borrowing, or $2.2 trillion excluding the American Rescue Plan.
- President Trump approved $8.8 trillion of gross new borrowing and $443 billion of deficit reduction during his full presidential term.
- President Biden has so far approved $6.2 trillion of gross new borrowing and $1.9 trillion of deficit reduction.
In companion analyses, we will show:
- Roughly 77 percent of President Trump’s approved ten-year debt came from bipartisan legislation, and 29 percent of the net ten-year debt President Biden has approved thus far came from bipartisan legislation. The rest was from partisan actions.
- President Trump approved $2.2 trillion of debt in his first two years in office and $6.2 trillion ($2.6 trillion non-COVID) in his second two years. President Biden approved $4.9 trillion ($2.9 trillion non-COVID) in his first two years in office and has so far approved over $600 billion of net ten-year deficit reduction since.
- President Trump approved $5.9 trillion of net spending increases including interest ($2.8 trillion non-COVID) and $2.5 trillion of net tax cuts ($2.0 trillion non-COVID). President Biden has approved $4.3 trillion of net spending increases including interest ($2.3 trillion non-COVID) and roughly $0 of net tax changes ($60 billion revenue increase non-COVID).
- Debt held by the public rose by $7.2 trillion during President Trump’s term including $5.9 trillion in the first three years and five months. Debt held by the public has grown by $6.0 trillion during President Biden’s term so far.
- President Trump’s executive actions added less than $20 billion to ten-year debt on net. President Biden’s executive actions have added $1.2 trillion to ten-year debt so far.
- The President’s budget was on average 39 days late under President Trump and 58 days late under President Biden.
From the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget where you can read the full report.
QUINNSCOMMENTARY 
My eyes glazed over trying to read and comprehend the comparison numbers. I guess that’s typical to the people who read about these numbers. But my eyes do perk up seeing my stock holdings increase more in value than inflation. “I’m coming out ahead”!
As long as people see their own self interest in receiving financial assistance (“I’m coming out ahead”!) from governments or other means, that’s what counts! Yea…keep it coming we all say.
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it’s quite a mess but when you set up the populace to believe in the free lunch what do you expect–we had people believing they could keep their health care and for $2,500 they could have the same insurance policy–I mean what a deal–sounded too good to be true-Obama told me I didn’t read paragraph 8–subsection 6 which really negated all that, sort of like the bankers who forgot to tell folks of the balloon payment that was due in 5-years.
we did our best to convince folks that El Presidente was really with it at all times–in private he was the sharpest guy in the room and did push ups and jumping jacks when he wasn’t curling 10-lb. weights–in public he was just playing with us.
Of course let’s sell folks on big orange as the next Hitler and his desire to become a dictator and as one commentator told me; “he won’t leave in 4-years if elected”.
So how hard is it to believe we have been sold the free lunch and don’t worry about the debt–we will run the presses and inflate the currency and then convince you that inflation is really high prices and that dastardly companies are the villains–you know Big Pharma and Big Oil and let’s throw in supply chains.
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when it hits the fan you better have a large umbrella. Cause’ it’s gonna be messy !
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What do you conclude from all this? I can see that neither Trump nor Biden are particularly knowledgeable about macroeconomics or really they are basically ignorant of the subject. I can also see that the rest of the legislative body is just as uninformed. But we knew this already.
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I conclude the American people want whatever is promised as free and couldn’t care less about deficits and debt until it all hits the fan and then they will blame whomever is in power at the time.
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It’s not surprising that people can’t draw a line from the trillions in the budget down to themselves and say well I better not apply for those or that. It’s not surprising that they can’t wrap their head around what a sum a trillion is. Even the elected politicians can’t do that.
In the twentieth century the US government shifted to a subsidy operation and started budgeting accordingly. Now everyone expects their subsidy, whatever it may be.
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