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   >An Illinois village has been plunged into millions of dollars of debt by   
   >its mayor's outrageous credit card spending, an investigation has   
   >revealed.   
   >   
      
   He's a republican.  All republicans are careless spenders.   They don't   
   even pay lip service to debt reduction now.   
      
   A Closer Look   
   Donald Trump Built a National Debt So Big (Even Before the Pandemic) That   
   It’ll Weigh Down the Economy for Years   
      
   The “King of Debt” promised to reduce the national debt — then his tax cuts   
   made it surge. Add in the pandemic, and he oversaw the third-biggest   
   deficit increase of any president.   
      
   by Allan Sloan, ProPublica, and Cezary Podkul for ProPublica Jan. 14, 2021,   
   5 a.m. EST   
   President Donald Trump promised to reduce the national debt but instead   
   increased it. It is now at its highest level relative to the U.S. economy   
   since the end of World War II. (Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images)   
      
   Series: A Closer Look   
      
   Examining the News   
      
   ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign   
   up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they’re published.   
      
   This story was co-published with The Washington Post.   
      
   One of President Donald Trump’s lesser known but profoundly damaging   
   legacies will be the explosive rise in the national debt that occurred on   
   his watch. The financial burden that he’s inflicted on our government will   
   wreak havoc for decades, saddling our kids and grandkids with debt.   
      
   The national debt has risen by almost $7.8 trillion during Trump’s time in   
   office. That’s nearly twice as much as what Americans owe on student loans,   
   car loans, credit cards and every other type of debt other than mortgages,   
   combined, according to data from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. It   
   amounts to about $23,500 in new federal debt for every person in the   
   country.   
      
   The growth in the annual deficit under Trump ranks as the third-biggest   
   increase, relative to the size of the economy, of any U.S. presidential   
   administration, according to a calculation by a leading Washington budget   
   maven, Eugene Steuerle, co-founder of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy   
   Center. And unlike George W. Bush and Abraham Lincoln, who oversaw the   
   larger relative increases in deficits, Trump did not launch two foreign   
   conflicts or have to pay for a civil war.   
   The National Debt Increased Under Trump Despite His Promise to Reduce It   
      
   Daily total national debt from 2009 to present.   
   Source: U.S. Treasury (Lena V. Groeger/ProPublica)   
      
   Economists agree that we needed massive deficit spending during the COVID-   
   19 crisis to ward off an economic cataclysm, but federal finances under   
   Trump had become dire even before the pandemic. That happened even though   
   the economy was booming and unemployment was at historically low levels. By   
   the Trump administration’s own description, the pre-pandemic national debt   
   level was already a “crisis” and a “grave threat.”   
      
   The combination of Trump’s 2017 tax cut and the lack of any serious   
   spending restraint helped both the deficit and the debt soar. So when the   
   once-in-a-lifetime viral disaster slammed our country and we threw more   
   than $3 trillion into COVID-19-related stimulus, there was no longer any   
   margin for error.   
      
   Our national debt has reached immense levels relative to our economy,   
   nearly as high as it was at the end of World War II. But unlike 75 years   
   ago, the massive financial overhang from Medicare and Social Security will   
   make it dramatically more difficult to dig ourselves out of the debt ditch.   
   The Debt to GDP Ratio Is the Highest It's Been Since World War II   
      
   Federal debt held by the public as a percentage of gross domestic product   
   since 1900.   
   Source: Congressional Budget Office (Lena V. Groeger/ProPublica)   
      
   Falling deeper into the red is the opposite of what Trump, the self-styled   
   “King of Debt,” said would happen if he became president. In a March 31,   
   2016, interview with Bob Woodward and Robert Costa of The Washington Post,   
   Trump said he could pay down the national debt, then about $19 trillion,   
   “over a period of eight years” by renegotiating trade deals and spurring   
   economic growth.   
      
   After he took office, Trump predicted that economic growth created by the   
   2017 tax cut, combined with the proceeds from the tariffs he imposed on a   
   wide range of goods from numerous countries, would help eliminate the   
   budget deficit and let the U.S. begin to pay down its debt. On July 27,   
   2018, he told Sean Hannity of Fox News: “We have $21 trillion in debt. When   
   this [the 2017 tax cut] really kicks in, we’ll start paying off that debt   
   like it’s water.”   
      
   Nine days later, he tweeted, “Because of Tariffs we will be able to start   
   paying down large amounts of the $21 trillion in debt that has been   
   accumulated, much by the Obama Administration.”   
      
   That’s not how it played out. When Trump took office in January 2017, the   
   nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office was projecting that federal budget   
   deficits would be 2% to 3% of our gross domestic product during Trump’s   
   term. Instead, the deficit reached nearly 4% of gross domestic product in   
   2018 and 4.6% in 2019.   
      
   There were multiple culprits. Trump’s tax cuts, especially the sharp   
   reduction in the corporate tax rate to 21% from 35%, took a big bite out of   
   federal revenue. The CBO estimated in 2018 that the tax cut would increase   
   deficits by about $1.9 trillion over 11 years.   
      
   Meanwhile, Trump’s claim that increased revenue from the tariffs would help   
   eliminate (or at least reduce) our national debt hasn’t panned out. In   
   2018, Trump’s administration began hiking tariffs on aluminum, steel and   
   many other products, launching what became a global trade war with China,   
   the European Union and other countries.   
      
   The tariffs did bring in additional revenue. In fiscal 2019, they netted   
   about $71 billion, up about $36 billion from President Barack Obama’s last   
   year in office. But although $36 billion is a lot of money, it’s less than   
   1/750th of the national debt. That $36 billion could have covered a bit   
   more than three weeks of interest on the national debt — that is, had Trump   
   not unilaterally decided to send a chunk of the tariff revenue to farmers   
   affected by his trade wars. Businesses that struggled as a result of the   
   tariffs also paid fewer taxes, offsetting some of the increased tariff   
   revenue.   
      
   By early 2019, the national debt had climbed to $22 trillion. Trump’s   
   budget proposal for 2020 called it a “grave threat to our economic and   
   societal prosperity” and asserted that the U.S. was experiencing a   
   “national debt crisis.” However, that same budget proposal included   
   substantial growth in the national debt.   
      
      
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