‘King of Debt’ skips out on the bill

Allan Sloan and Cezary Podkul

The national debt rose almost $7.8 trillion—$23,500 for each person in the country—during President Trump’s time in office, said Allan Sloan and Cezary Podkul. It’s now “at its highest level relative to our economy since the end of World War II.” But 75 years ago, we didn’t have social outlays like Medicare “baked into our budget,” and America’s postwar recovery enabled the debt to rapidly fall. That won’t happen this time. Even with rates at record lows, the government’s net interest cost in the 2020 fiscal year outstripped “all spending on education, employment training, research, and social services.” Rates, though, won’t stay this low forever. All the borrowing will

have to be refinanced, adding to the government’s interest bill. Massive spending was justified last spring to ward off economic devastation. But “federal finances under Trump had become dire before the pandemic.” With his 2017 tax cuts and unrestrained spending, the “self-styled ‘King of Debt’” oversaw the third-largest increase in the deficit in the history of the United States, trailing only George W. Bush and Abraham Lincoln. Unlike them, however, “Trump did not launch two foreign conflicts or have to pay for a civil war.” The burden now threatens our kids, making the explosive rise in debt one of Trump’s most “profoundly damaging legacies.”