The national debt is swelling. The next president probably won’t stop it.

Neither candidate made debt reduction a priority while in the White House, according to a study released Monday by the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. The debt increased by $8.4 trillion during Trump’s first term, while Biden has added $4.3 trillion so far, according to the group.

Much of the new debt under both administrations came from spending intended to combat extreme economic hardship created by the coronavirus pandemic in early 2020. Mainstream conservative and liberal economists say the spending was necessary to avoid greater economic calamity.

But so does Trump The debt was increased with other big-ticket items, including his 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which cost $1.9 trillion, and two bipartisan budget bills that cost a combined $2.1 trillion dollars, according to the CRFB. Biden’s largest non-debt-funded initiatives were the $1.4 trillion spending bills for fiscal years 2022 and 2023 and $620 billion in student debt relief. But the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023 that Biden negotiated with congressional Republicans reduced the national debt by $1.5 trillion.

Not counting pandemic-related spending, Trump added $2.5 trillion more to the debt than Biden, according to the CRFB report.

“I think the question voters need to ask is: who would prioritize debt control? And looking at the track record of both candidates, no one stands out as willing to make this a major priority so far,” said CRFB President Maya MacGuineas.

Whoever wins the White House will likely face a reckoning over their debt, and soon. Early next year, Congress will again face a looming deadline to raise or suspend the debt ceiling, which caps borrowing, or an economically devastating default. And by December 2025, Congress will have to decide whether to extend the majority of Trump’s tax cuts or let them expire — a decision that would result in a sharp increase in rates for almost all Americans.

A full extension of the tax cuts would add $4.6 trillion to the debt over the next decade, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

Biden has proposed a limited extension of those tax cuts, as well as higher rates for the wealthy and corporations, which his aides say would reduce the debt by $3 trillion. Investments in child care, health care and affordable housing would make life easier for working parents, spurring economic growth, his administration says.

“This is a campaign that simply lacks seriousness when it comes to fiscal policy,” MacGuineas said.

The legislative battles will take place in a worrying budgetary context. Last week, the CBO projected annual budget deficits of nearly $2 trillion for the foreseeable future. This mismatch between spending and revenue will cause borrowing to rise even further, with debt reaching more than $50 trillion by 2034, or more than 122% of the nation’s overall economy, the CBO said.

Within three years, the agency said the debt would exceed 106% of GDP, surpassing the previous record set in the aftermath of World War II.

“I think this is a very dangerous situation for our country, and I’m not even a debt phobe,” said Stephen Moore, an economist at the right-wing Heritage Foundation and an economic adviser to Trump. “I’ve been doing this for 40 years. That (CBO report) was the first one that really scared me. There is no downward inflection of the curve. It just keeps going up and up and up and up.

Biden said he would not consider cutting Social Security and Medicare, retirement and health care programs that face looming trust fund shortfalls and will absorb a larger share of spending federal in the future. Trump proposed cutting the programs, but quickly backtracked and insisted he would not support cutting benefits.

The Republican Study Committee, one of the leading Republican caucuses in the House, suggested cuts to welfare programs in its 2024 budget.

Trump aims to get the economy out of debt problems, aiming for growth above 3% in order to increase federal revenues, Moore said. In a presentation to House Republicans earlier in June, Moore swapped the CBO’s long-term economic growth rate of 1.8 percent for an optimistic rate of 3.1 percent. That projection meant enough new revenue for annual deficits to begin to stabilize, he said.

“You need to accelerate growth, because growth is what creates the revenue you need to catch up with expenses,” Moore said.

But the economy grew 1.6% on an annualized basis in the first quarter of 2024, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, and it could be difficult to achieve the rates that Moore said would help the budget. Growth rates would need to be exponentially higher to exceed U.S. spending and borrowing needs, independent experts say.

“We’re not even paying right now for the things we said we were going to pay for,” said Jason Fichtner, chief economist at the think tank Bipartisan Policy Center.

According to some conservatives, lowering the corporate tax rate would unlock this economic growth. Trump recently suggested cutting the corporate tax rate to 20%, which would add between $150 billion and $200 billion to the debt, according to federal estimates.

“There is no credible argument that we will be able to extricate ourselves from the problems we face, and it becomes even more difficult if we continue to add to the debt through further tax cuts or increases in taxes. debt-financed spending.” MacGuineas said.

The Biden administration has accused Trump and Republicans of taking steps to reduce the deficit only when Democrats are in power, accumulating trillions in debt during the Republican Party’s control.

“After the previous administration increased the debt by a record $8 trillion and signed no legislation to reduce the deficit, President Biden signed into law a $1 trillion deficit reduction bill. dollars. While congressional Republicans want to further blow up the debt with $5 trillion in additional tax cuts from Trump, President Biden’s budget would reduce the deficit by $3 trillion by forcing billionaires and “big companies to pay their fair share and by reducing spending on special interests,” the White House spokesperson said. Jeremy M. Edwards said in a statement.

Biden says his agenda could both fund new programs and reduce the debt. He would offset this spending with large tax increases on the wealthy and big businesses.

The Biden administration views money-saving policies on Medicare and cutting spending on other “special interests,” such as fossil fuels, as a way to reduce federal spending, said Daniel Hornung, director deputy of the National Economic Council of the White House, in an interview. .

“Revenues need to better match expenses,” Hornung said. “Clearly, there are two sides to this equation and the president has proposed a budget that both increases the amount of revenue we generate as a share of the economy by raising taxes on wealthy Americans and large businesses, and which also reduces certain expenditures that the federal government makes.

The Trump campaign blasted Biden’s handling of the budget.

“In just three years, Joe Biden’s out-of-control spending has created the worst inflation crisis in generations,” Trump campaign national press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement. “The American people cannot afford four more years of Bidenomics. When President Trump returns to the White House, he will reimplement MAGAnomics and restore an economy that benefits all Americans.

Independent budget experts are wary of both campaigns’ claims.

“Can I give them both C minuses on debt policy? » said Fichtner.

The U.S. government owes $34.7 trillion, according to the Treasury, the vast majority of which is held by the public through bonds and other debt instruments. The cost of this debt keeps rising as the government spends more – and has to borrow more, because taxes and other revenues don’t cover all the spending.

The CBO projects the U.S. annual deficit will reach $2.8 trillion by 2034, but that estimate only takes into account current legislation, not Biden and Trump’s tax and spending plans or other changes that could occur over the next decade.

As the deficit grows, borrowing becomes more expensive due to higher interest rates. And because these interest payments represent a larger share of the federal budget, they crowd out other investments that Congress and the president could make.

This could potentially limit economic growth, which would depress tax revenues – and could force the government to borrow even more, repeating the same cycle. This year, the government is expected to spend $892 billion on interest payments alone.

“We are bringing together all the conditions in which the budgetary situation could quickly become very dangerous,” MacGuineas said.

Such an outcome is likely to happen for years, experts say. But the new debt numbers are a warning sign, especially since most economists don’t know the threshold at which lenders will start balking at U.S. debt levels.