Doused by debt
GOP shares blame for $40 trillion tab
CAMERON SMITH
The eye-glazing milestone arrived without fanfare or protest in Washington's political theater: U.S. debt officially crested $40 trillion. To average Americans struggling with grocery bills and higher interest rates, a figure with 12 zeros sounds like a problem for future generations. But fiscal gravity is already pulling down our economy.
Annual net interest on the debt will surpass $1 trillion this year, consuming more revenue than the entire national defense budget.
We are paying vastly more for the same government services, burning hard-earned taxpayer dollars to service past political cowardice.
What makes this fiscal apocalypse infuriating is the brazen hypocrisy of the Republican Party.
For decades, we conservatives built our brand on fiscal discipline. Having served as executive director of the House Republican Policy Committee, I listened to endless Capitol Hill speeches about balancing the ledger. Yet whenever handed the keys to governance,
GOP lawmakers routinely treat the federal checkbook like a maxed-out credit card. MAGA echo chambers insist reckless spending is strictly a Democratic disease, but official government figures tell a damning, mathematically undeniable story.
To evaluate who actually owns this red ink, look at fiscal years governed by each president's enacted budget. An incoming administration inherits its predecessor's baseline for its first eight months, meaning a president's true footprint begins with the fiscal year budget they sign. For President Barack Obama, that covers fiscal years 2010 through 2017.
President Donald Trump's first-term budget legacy spans fiscal years 2018 through 2021, while President Joe Biden's covers fiscal years 2022 through 2025. Reviewing the accounting through this standard lens using official Congressional Budget Office historical data, partisan excuses collapse.
Across eight budget years, Obama oversaw $6.54 trillion in total deficits, averaging $817 billion annually, heavily front-loaded by the Great Recession. Biden's four fiscal years produced $6.68 trillion in deficits, averaging $1.67 trillion annually through massive spending packages.Combined, the 12 budget years under Obama and Biden — both Democrats — produced $13.22 trillion in deficits.
Now look at Trump's first term. Official reporting from the CBO confirms that between fiscal years 2018 and 2021, federal deficits totaled $7.67 trillion with an average annual deficit of $1.92 trillion. So he accumulated more total federal debt in four fiscal years ($7.67 trillion) than Obama did in eight ($6.54 trillion). Moreover, the Republican's annual average ($1.92 trillion) more than doubled Obama's average and eclipsed Biden's.
Partisans try to blame Trump's fiscal wreckage on 2020 pandemic relief, but that is revisionist history. Long before COVID19, Trump approved major spending increases alongside the 2017 tax cuts without making a meaningful reduction in federal outlays.
Annual deficits expanded every year of Trump's initial presidency, rising from $665 billion in fiscal 2017 to almost $1 trillion in fiscal 2019, during a period of broad economic expansion when revenues should have been reducing debt. Moreover, COVID19 was years ago. The current deficit for fiscal 2026 is nearly $1.8 trillion.
How's that for Republican fiscal restraint? Before Democrats get sanctimonious, progressives cannot raise taxes high enough to pay for their spending without wrecking the economy. Left-wing politicians claim taxing ultra-wealthy Americans will magically eliminate our deficits.
But the total aggregate taxable income reported by all 800-plus U.S. billionaires sits at about $250 billion annually. Taxing every dollar of billionaire income at a 50% rate yields $125 billion — covering less than 7% of our $1.8 trillion annual deficit and funding federal operations for under seven days.
Real leadership requires the courage to align revenues with expenditures, reform mandatory entitlements and tell voters the hard truth. Until conservatives rediscover that grit, claims of fiscal responsibility are nothing more than political lies written in red ink.
Smith wrote this for the Nashville Tennessean and USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect.
