Share on email The winner of November's election faces a gloomy fiscal outlook, with rapidly rising debt levels at a time when interest rates are already high and demographic pressure on retirement programs is rising.
But Trump's contribution was significantly higher, according to the fiscal watchdogs at the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, thanks to both tax cuts and spending deals struck in his four years in the White House.Trump added $8.4 trillion in borrowing over a ten-year window, CRFB finds in a report out this morning.If you exclude COVID relief spending from the tally, the numbers are $4.8 trillion for Trump and $2.2 trillion for Biden.
Biden deficits have also swelled, according to CRFB's analysis, due to executive actions that changed the way food stamp benefits are calculated, expanding Medicaid benefits, and other changes that total $548 billion.Much of Trump's tax law is set to expire at the end of 2025, and the CBO has estimated that fully extending it would increase deficits by $4.6 trillion over the next decade.
And the Social Security trust fund is rapidly hurtling toward depletion in 2033, which would trigger huge cuts in the retirement benefits absent Congressional action."The next president will face huge fiscal challenges," CRFB president Maya MacGuineas tells Axios.