President Donald Trump has overseen an $11.6 trillion surge in the national debt during his two terms in office, despite repeated campaign promises to eliminate it. Analysts at the Center for American Progress estimate that tax cuts enacted under the Bush and Trump administrations account for more than 90% of the increase in the debt ratio since 2001, when excluding one-time emergency costs from the Great Recession and the Covid-19 pandemic.
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The $40 Trillion Debt: How Tax Cuts and Policy Choices Drove the Surge
As the U.S. national debt hits a staggering $40 trillion, Congressional Republicans are pointing fingers at social spending. However, economists argue that the primary drivers of this fiscal crisis are not public services, but a series of massive tax cuts for the wealthy and ballooning military expenditures spanning decades.
Economists like Dean Baker and Paul Krugman argue that the debt's rapid growth stems from structural fiscal choices rather than social programs. Krugman noted that the current interest payments on the debt now exceed spending on both the military and Medicare. Adding to this fiscal strain are revenue losses from invalidated tariffs and a new tax package signed last summer that further favors large corporations. Representative Chris Deluzio noted that the interest alone is now consuming a larger share of public funds than critical federal programs, leaving future generations to manage the mounting deficit.
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