The fiscal policies of the Trump administration added twice the amount to the national deficit as have President Biden’s, a new analysis has found.
Trump’s administration borrowed $8.4 trillion during the former president’s 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.
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.
Those additions were mostly due to the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), changes to the Affordable Care Act, and different budgetary acts in 2018 and 2019.
Most of Biden’s non-pandemic-related additions were due to the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, student debt relief, appropriations bills and other executive actions.
The two parties add to the debt in different ways, with Republicans doing it mostly through bipartisan legislation and Democrats doing it more through executive actions, the CRFB says in a preview of future work.
Seventy-seven percent of the Trump administration’s additions to the national debt were attributable to bipartisan legislation, while 23 percent came from bills and actions with little to no bipartisan support.
For the Biden administration, 29 percent of additional debt has come from bipartisan laws, while 71 percent came from unilateral decisions.
Both Trump and Biden spent their first two years in office with their parties in control of both chambers of Congress before the House flipped during the midterm elections of each of their terms.
Budgetary pressures have intensified over the course of the Biden administration as the deficit ballooned following the fiscal measures passed in the wake of the pandemic.
U.S. debt increased by more than $3 trillion between the first and second quarters of 2020 and has risen more steeply in recent years than in those prior to the pandemic. Total debt stands at around $34.5 trillion.
As a percentage of gross domestic product, U.S. debts have settled on a new plateau around 120 percent versus the 100 percent prior to 2020.
Revenue-raising measures are currently under consideration by both parties ahead of individual tax cut expirations in the TCJA scheduled for the end of 2025.
The parties are drawing lines in the sand now about the scope and style of tax code changes, with key Democrats and Republicans on financial and tax-writing committees laying out signposts about where they think U.S. revenue architecture should be headed.
