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   President Donald Trump promised to reduce the national debt but instead
   increased it. It is now at its highest level relative to the U.S.
   economy since the end of World War II. (Brendan Smialowski/AFP via
   Getty Images)

   [24]Series: A Closer Look

Donald Trump Built a National Debt So Big (Even Before the Pandemic) That
It’ll Weigh Down the Economy for Years

   The “King of Debt” promised to reduce the national debt — then his tax
   cuts made it surge. Add in the pandemic, and he oversaw the
   third-biggest deficit increase of any president.

   by [25]Allan Sloan, ProPublica, and Cezary Podkul for [26]ProPublica
   Jan. 14, 5 a.m. EST
   President Donald Trump promised to reduce the national debt but instead
   increased it. It is now at its highest level relative to the U.S.
   economy since the end of World War II. (Brendan Smialowski/AFP via
   Getty Images)

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[30]Series: A Closer Look

   Examining the News

   ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power.
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   published.

   This story was co-published with The Washington Post.

   One of President Donald Trump’s lesser known but profoundly damaging
   legacies will be the explosive rise in the national debt that occurred
   on his watch. The financial burden that he’s inflicted on our
   government will wreak havoc for decades, saddling our kids and
   grandkids with debt.

   The national debt has risen by almost $7.8 trillion during Trump’s time
   in office. That’s nearly twice as much as what Americans owe on student
   loans, car loans, credit cards and every other type of debt other than
   mortgages, combined, according to [32]data from the Federal Reserve
   Bank of New York. It amounts to about $23,500 in new federal debt for
   every person in the country.

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   The growth in the annual deficit under Trump ranks as the third-biggest
   increase, relative to the size of the economy, of any U.S. presidential
   administration, according to a calculation by a leading Washington
   budget maven, Eugene Steuerle, co-founder of the Urban-Brookings Tax
   Policy Center. And unlike George W. Bush and Abraham Lincoln, who
   oversaw the larger relative increases in deficits, Trump did not launch
   two foreign conflicts or have to pay for a civil war.

The National Debt Increased Under Trump Despite His Promise to Reduce It

   Daily total national debt from 2009 to present.
   Source: U.S. Treasury (Lena V. Groeger/ProPublica)

   Economists agree that we needed massive deficit spending during the
   COVID-19 crisis to ward off an economic cataclysm, but federal finances
   under Trump [35]had become dire even before the pandemic. That happened
   even though the economy was booming and unemployment was at
   historically low levels. By the Trump administration’s [36]own
   description, the pre-pandemic national debt level was already a
   “crisis” and a “grave threat.”

   The combination of Trump’s 2017 tax cut and the lack of any serious
   spending restraint helped both the deficit and the debt soar. So when
   the once-in-a-lifetime viral disaster slammed our country and we threw
   more than $3 trillion into COVID-19-related stimulus, there was no
   longer any margin for error.

   Our national debt has reached immense levels relative to our economy,
   nearly as high as it was at the end of World War II. But unlike 75
   years ago, the massive financial overhang from Medicare and Social
   Security will make it dramatically more difficult to dig ourselves out
   of the debt ditch.

The Debt to GDP Ratio Is the Highest It's Been Since World War II

   Federal debt held by the public as a percentage of gross domestic
   product since 1900.
   Source: Congressional Budget Office (Lena V. Groeger/ProPublica)

   Falling deeper into the red is the opposite of what Trump, the
   self-styled “King of Debt,” said would happen if he became president.
   In a March 31, 2016, [37]interview with Bob Woodward and Robert Costa
   of The Washington Post, Trump said he could pay down the national debt,
   then about $19 trillion, “over a period of eight years” by
   renegotiating trade deals and spurring economic growth.

   After he took office, Trump predicted that economic growth created by
   the 2017 tax cut, combined with the proceeds from the tariffs he
   imposed on a wide range of goods from numerous countries, would help
   eliminate the budget deficit and let the U.S. begin to pay down its
   debt. On July 27, 2018, he [38]told Sean Hannity of Fox News: “We have
   $21 trillion in debt. When this [the 2017 tax cut] really kicks in,
   we’ll start paying off that debt like it’s water.”

   Nine days later, he tweeted, “Because of Tariffs we will be able to
   start paying down large amounts of the $21 trillion in debt that has
   been accumulated, much by the Obama Administration.”

   That’s not how it played out. When Trump took office in January 2017,
   the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office [39]was projecting that
   federal budget deficits would be 2% to 3% of our gross domestic product
   during Trump’s term. Instead, the deficit reached nearly 4% of gross
   domestic product in 2018 and 4.6% in 2019.

   There were multiple culprits. Trump’s tax cuts, especially the sharp
   reduction in the corporate tax rate to 21% from 35%, took a big bite
   out of federal revenue. The CBO estimated in 2018 that the tax cut
   would increase deficits by about $1.9 trillion over 11 years.

   Meanwhile, Trump’s claim that increased revenue from the tariffs would
   help eliminate (or at least reduce) our national debt hasn’t panned
   out. In 2018, Trump’s administration began hiking tariffs on aluminum,
   steel and many other products, launching what became a global trade war
   with China, the European Union and other countries.

   The tariffs did bring in additional revenue. In fiscal 2019, they
   netted about $71 billion, up about $36 billion from President Barack
   Obama’s last year in office. But although $36 billion is a lot of
   money, it’s less than 1/750th of the national debt. That $36 billion
   could have covered a bit more than three weeks of interest on the
   national debt — that is, had Trump not unilaterally decided to [40]send
   a chunk of the tariff revenue to farmers affected by his trade wars.
   Businesses that struggled as a result of the tariffs also paid fewer
   taxes, offsetting some of the increased tariff revenue.

   By early 2019, the national debt had climbed to $22 trillion. Trump’s
   budget proposal for 2020 [41]called it a “grave threat to our economic
   and societal prosperity” and asserted that the U.S. was experiencing a
   “national debt crisis.” However, that same budget proposal included
   substantial growth in the national debt.

   By the end of 2019, the debt had risen to $23.2 trillion and more
   federal officials were sounding the alarm. “Not since World War II has
   the country seen deficits during times of low unemployment that are as
   large as those that we project — nor, in the past century, has it
   experienced large deficits for as long as we project,” Phillip Swagel,
   director of the CBO, [42]said in January 2020.

   Weeks later, COVID-19 erupted and made the financial situation far
   worse. As of Dec. 31, 2020, the national debt had jumped to $27.75
   trillion, up 39% from $19.95 trillion when Trump was sworn in. The
   government ended its 2020 fiscal year with the portion of the national
   debt owed to investors, the metric favored by the CBO, at around 100%
   of GDP. The [43]CBO had predicted less than a year earlier that it
   would take until 2030 to reach that approximate level of debt.
   Including the trillions owed to various governmental trust funds, the
   total debt is now about 130% of GDP.

   Normally, this is where we’d give you Trump’s version of events. But we
   couldn’t get anyone to give us Trump’s side. Judd Deere, a White House
   spokesman, referred us to the Office of Management and Budget, which is
   a branch of the White House.

   OMB didn’t respond to our requests. The Treasury directed us to
   comments [44]made by OMB director Russell Vought in October, in which
   he predicted that as the pandemic eases and economic growth rebounds,
   the “fiscal picture” will improve. The OMB [45]blamed legislators for
   deficits when Trump submitted his proposed 2021 budget: “Unfortunately,
   the Congress continues to reject any efforts to restrain spending.
   Instead, they have greatly contributed to the continued ballooning of
   Federal debt and deficits, putting the Nation’s fiscal future at risk.”

   Still, the deficit growth under Trump has been historic. Steuerle, of
   the Tax Policy Center, has done a comparison of every American
   president using a metric called the “primary deficit.” It’s defined as
   the deficit minus interest costs, because interest is the only budget
   expense that presidents and Congress can’t control unless they want to
   do the unthinkable and default on the debt. Steuerle examined the
   records of 45 presidents to see how the primary deficit had shrunk or
   grown relative to the size of the economy between the first and final
   years of each president’s administration.

   Trump had the third-biggest primary deficit growth, 5.2% of GDP, behind
   only George W. Bush (11.7%) and Abraham Lincoln (9.4%). Bush, of
   course, not only passed a big tax cut, as Trump has, but also launched
   two wars, which greatly inflated the defense budget. Lincoln had to pay
   for the Civil War. By contrast, Trump’s wars have been almost entirely
   of the political variety.

   Our national debt is now at its highest level relative to our economy
   since the end of World War II. After the war ended, the extraordinary
   military expenses disappeared, a postwar recovery began and the debt
   began to fall rapidly relative to the size of the economy.

   But that’s not going to happen this time. When World War II ended 75
   years ago, Social Security was in its infancy and Medicare didn’t
   exist. Today, many of our biggest and most rapidly growing expenses,
   especially Social Security and Medicare, are baked into the budget
   because of our nation’s aging population. These outlays are slated to
   rise sharply. Steuerle [46]recently calculated that Social Security,
   health care and interest costs are projected to absorb 122% of the
   total growth in federal revenues from 2019 to 2030.

   What’s more, our investment in the future — things like research and
   development, education, infrastructure, workforce training and such —
   is declining as a proportion of the budget. OMB data shows that in
   1970, mandatory spending (such as Social Security and Medicare, but not
   including interest on the debt) and investment each made up around 30%
   of total federal spending. But as of 2019, the most recent available
   year, mandatory spending had doubled to around 61% of total federal
   spending while investment fell by more than half, to around 12.5%.

Mandatory Spending Outstrips Investment in the Future

   Mandatory and investment spending as a percentage of total U.S.
   government spending from 1970 to 2019. Mandatory (also known as
   nondiscretionary) spending includes programs such as Social Security
   and Medicare, while investment includes infrastructure, research and
   development, education and training.
   Source: Office of Management and Budget (Lena V. Groeger/ProPublica)

   Spending more and more on past promises and shrinking the proportion of
   spending for the future doesn’t bode well for our kids and grandkids.
   Had Trump done what he said he’d do and paid off part of the national
   debt before COVID-19 struck rather than adding significantly to the
   debt, the situation would be considerably less dire. And had Trump done
   a better job of coping with COVID-19, the economic and human costs
   would’ve been greatly reduced.

   In addition to forcing us to reduce the proportion of the budget spent
   on the future to help pay for the past, there’s a second reason that
   huge and growing budget deficits matter: interest costs.

   Bigger debt ultimately means bigger interest costs, even in an era when
   the Federal Reserve has forced down Treasury rates to ultralow levels.
   The government’s interest cost (including interest paid to government
   trust funds) was around [47]$523 billion in the 2020 fiscal year. That
   outstrips all spending on education, employment training, research and
   social services, Treasury data shows.

   Interest costs are way below where they’d be if the Fed hadn’t forced
   rates down to try to stimulate the economy and mitigate the impact of
   the pandemic. One-year Treasury securities cost taxpayers a minuscule
   0.10% in interest at year-end, down from 1.59% at the end of 2019. The
   10-year Treasury rate was 0.93%, down from 1.92%.

   In late December, the Fed reported boosting its Treasury holdings by
   more than $2 trillion from a year earlier. The increase is primarily in
   longer-term securities. That has kept the federal government from
   having to raise trillions of dollars in the capital markets, and
   therefore has kept longer-term interest rates way below where they
   would otherwise be.

   But unless something changes, even the [48]Fed’s promise to keep
   interest rates near current levels for several years won’t fend off
   future problems. Most of the government’s borrowing to fund pandemic
   relief has been shorter-term borrowing that will have to be refinanced
   in the coming years. If rates rise, so will the government’s interest
   expense.

   Even with rates where they are, interest on the debt is already going
   to be the fastest-growing budget category this decade, according to the
   Peter G. Peterson Foundation, which tracks the issue. Annual net
   interest costs are projected to double in 10 years and grow so large
   beyond 2030 that interest will become a driving factor in annual
   deficit growth, [49]according to Peterson estimates.

   Listen to what CBO Director Swagel had to say on the subject in [50]a
   report to congressional Republicans in December: “Although the current
   low interest rates indicate that the debt is manageable for now and
   that the United States is not facing an immediate fiscal crisis, in
   which interest rates abruptly escalated or other disruptions occurred,
   the risk and potential budgetary consequences of such a crisis become
   greater over time.”

Read More

[51]How NYPD’s Vice Unit Got Prostitution Policing All Wrong

   Most sex workers are trying to feed their families and avoid
   homelessness. The city’s preferred solution, counseling sessions,
   didn’t help them. And NYPD’s “crackdown” conveniently resulted in very
   few white people being arrested.

   Trump was asked about this risk during [52]a virtual discussion with
   the Economic Club of New York last October. “If we have another
   stimulus bill out of Congress, are you worried that the entire amount
   of federal debt will be too large for us to pay off in a sensible way?”
   asked David Rubenstein, a private equity executive.

   Trump answered by falsely claiming that the U.S. was starting to pay
   off the national debt before the pandemic, and he claimed that future
   economic growth would let it do so. “I think you’re going to see
   tremendous growth, David, and the growth is going to get it done,”
   Trump said.

   Two months later, when Congress finally approved $900 billion of
   economic stimulus that is being financed with debt, Trump
   [53]challenged Congress to spend — and borrow — even more. Then he
   [54]went golfing.

   [55]Doris Burke contributed reporting.

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   [58]Allan Sloan

   Allan Sloan is a former editor at large at ProPublica and a columnist
   at The Washington Post.
     * [59][email protected]

   [60]Portrait of Cezary Podkul

   [61]Cezary Podkul

   Cezary Podkul is a former reporter for ProPublica and the Wall Street
   Journal who writes about finance.
     * [62][email protected]
     * [63]@Cezary

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  53. https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/12/22/trump-stimulus-video-bill/
  54. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/a-day-on-the-golf-course-helped-change-trumps-mind-on-the-stimulus-bill/2020/12/28/e8580ff4-4925-11eb-839a-cf4ba7b7c48c_story.html
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  72. https://www.propublica.org/article/mo-brooks-compared-bidens-election-to-the-start-of-the-civil-war-now-he-wants-a-senate-seat
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