Maya MacGuineas: The debt is huge because Trump kept his promises

Maya MacGuineas is president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget and head of the Campaign to Fix the Debt. She recently wrote an opinion piece for the Washington Post, excerpts of which are below.

President Trump has, to a remarkable degree, fulfilled his 2016 campaign promises — and the country’s fiscal health is worse for it. . . .

In his first three years in office, before the coronavirus pandemic, President Trump approved a whopping $3.9 trillion in borrowing for new tax cuts and spending between 2017 and 2026. This substantially expanded the national debt during a period of strong, sustained economic growth. . . .

As a result, we entered this year’s health and economic crisis with a debt, expressed as a share of gross domestic product, higher than any time in U.S. history, other than just after World War II. Adding in covid-19 relief measures, the president has enacted a total of $6.6 trillion in new borrowing in his first term. The debt is now likely to exceed the size of the economy as soon as next year. 

Read the entire piece here.

"My Views" are works published by members or staff of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, but they do not necessarily reflect the views of all members or staff of the Committee.