The larger figure, gross federal debt, reached 100% of GDP for the first timein 2013, when Barack Obama was president and Joe Biden was vice president. It remained above 100% for the rest of the Obama-Biden administration and the entire Trump-Pence administration. It remains above 100% during Biden’s presidency.
As with publicly held debt, the gross federal debt as a percentage of GDP peaked in 2020, the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, at almost 128%. It has fallen by a couple of percentage points under Biden. Pence has been open about his regrets over the level of federal deficits during his time as vice president.told the PBS NewsHour’s Judy Woodruff
in December 2022."Now, in the midst of COVID, we spent what we needed to spend to get American families and American businesses through that worst pandemic in 100 years. But I do believe whoever is the next president, it’ll be important that we bring about the kinds of reforms and we make the kinds of choices necessary to lift the burden of more than $30 trillion in debt on our children and grandchildren.
Having the national debt reach 100% of GDP sounds scary. But economists say it’s not necessarily an ominous sign for a country like the U.S. that has strong credit, big reserve assets and expansive borrowing capacity.
Half true by the leftist fact checkers means true for sure.