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The difference is that Trump was using the money to try an bring money back into the US, through various ways. To eventually (hopefully) begin to reduce that debt, or at least slow it down. Biden seems to want to send as much overseas and waste it on green energy garbage as possible, which compounds the issue.
The fiscal policies of the Trump administration added twice the amount to the national deficit as have President Bidenās, a new analysis has found.
Trumpās administration borrowed $8.4 trillion during the former presidentās time in office, while Biden has borrowed $4.3 trillion, according to an analysis by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB), a Washington think tank.
originally posted by: xuenchen
How much National Debt was added by COVID spending? š
Ignoring the pandemic relief measures enacted by both presidents, the proportion of debt addition still holds around 2-to-1, with former President Trump adding $4.8 trillion in non-pandemic-aid fiscal debt and Biden adding $2.2 trillion.
āTrump ran up more debt than any other President in American history,ā the post reads. āHe wants Republicans to force a dangerous default if they donāt get their way. We cannot let right-wing extremists hold our economy hostage.ā
But in terms of all presidents, the Trump years did not record the most debt added ā although they did add a lot.
Looking at historical federal debt data by fiscal year, the total gross U.S. debt was about $19.5 trillion at the end of fiscal year 2016, which ended several months before Trump took office, said G. William Hoagland, senior vice president at the Bipartisan Policy Center. That rose to about $26.9 trillion at the end of fiscal year 2020, or a $7.4 trillion increase, just before Trump left office.
The debt added under Obamaās two terms, however, amounted to about $9.5 trillion.
There are some caveats: Those figures are not adjusted for inflation. A federal fiscal year begins in October, so there is some overlap when administrations change. And the total debt includes debt held by the public, which accounts for most of the debt, but also debt owed by one part of the government to another.
There are also different ways to analyze the data.
Evaluating only full one-term presidencies, for example, the rise under Trump may well be on paper the largest increase. But the increase under former President George H. W. Bush ā about $1.4 trillion ā represented a larger percentage increase than under Trump, Hoagland noted.
And some economists prefer to view the national debt as a percentage of the U.S. gross domestic product, or GDP, because it indicates the ability of the country to handle its debt.
āCompare it to a household,ā explained Eugene Steuerle, co-founder of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center. āThe higher the householdās wages, the more it can pay off its debt.ā
Looking at it that way, the gross debt as a percentage of GDP reached an all-time high of nearly 128% at the end of Trumpās tenure, according to the historical federal data. That said, itās represented more than 100% of GDP since 2013; that burden in relation to the size of the economy was previously unseen since World War II.
But the debt accumulated under specific presidents isnāt just a result of their own policies ā it reflects decisions made by their predecessors as well as by members of Congress.
āThe point is that fiscal policy reflects joint action by Congress and the president,ā said David Primo, a University of Rochester professor of political science and business administration. Statements like Jeffriesā imply presidents have sole control over fiscal policy, he noted.
Similarly, Hoagland said: āAll presidents inherit spending from previous administrations and in turn they create spending for the future president.ā
The cost of programs like Social Security and Medicare continue to drive up the debt, as do factors beyond a presidentās control, like COVID-19 or the recession inherited by Obama.
āAs a budget expert, what pains me is that partisan bickering about who is to blame for the debt obscures an important truth: both parties have abdicated their budgetary responsibilities,ā Primo said, noting that about two-thirds of the debt has been incurred since 2001.