The growth of the debt under Biden compared to Trump

debt end of 2016 - $19.97 trillion
7.78 trillion added (Trump) in 4 years
debt at end of 2020 - $27.75 trillion
2.53 trillion added (Biden) in 1.375 years
debt April 2022 - $30.28 trillion

2.53 trillion in 1.375 years is equivalent to 7.337 trillion, if it continues at the same rate.

These statistics are for "total public debt outstanding", which includes the debt the Treasury owes to the Federal Reserve. I think it's appropriate to include this because it also helps give a good idea of how much money was printed. (And don't think this is merely "just money the government owes to itself", because if the Treasury does not pay off these debts, it will just cause even more inflation. In a very theoretical sense, every owner of a dollar is the owner of this debt)

The statistics come from Debt to the Penny | U.S. Treasury Fiscal Data

 

I don't know why we play this game about debt going up with each new president. Of course the debt goes up! We don't run a budget surplus and everything is more expensive.

 

The trade balance - the Current Account Balance - is a big problem

 

We went from a credit run economy, to a debit run economy, during the Reagan years, which is also when we got to a trillion dollar deficit.

We could have been sensible any time since then. Instead, Republicans used various schemes to throw trillions at the rich, while undermining the IRS to help the rich get away with cheating, on top of the freebies.

While Ukraine and Covid are the obvious crises, they've revealed a laundry list of weaknesses, problems, and growing failures. Not dealing with them is not a sane alternative. We've let things slide for 40 years (for some things, longer) and if we keep ignoring our problems, the clock is already ticking.

I am beginning to think I've been wrong (since the 80s) and that all great powers end, usually violently. You see, we have had problems that are not all that hard to fix. Well, they used to be that way. But they've gotten worse, we've gotten weaker, and our politics has gone batsh*t crazy. Which means Congress can't do it's job most of the time. The number of bills passed has dropped by about 90%. Seriously, how long do you think we can keep that up...

 

To be entirely fair to Trump's legacy, I think one of the reasons Biden may be running up the debt at a slightly slower rate is because money is being printed faster under Biden, to pay for the debt.

So it is a little bit hard to directly compare. (Economics can get a little complicated)

 

When Trump left office in 2020 the national debt as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP) had grown to 129%. After two years of President Biden it declined to 123%.

https://www.thebalancemoney.com/national-debt-by-year-compared-to-gdp-and-major-events-3306287

 

But as I explained, it's not an entirely fair comparison, under Biden more of the budget was paid through inflation (rather than adding to debt).

And during Trump's last 2 years, the Democrats were in control of the rest of the government, and pushed higher levels of spending, part of which was because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Trump went along with what the Democrats wanted, because he knew if he didn't, the media (which was Democrat-supporting) would criticize him for it and increase the chances that a Republican would lose the next upcoming election for president. So because of the media and the voters together, paradoxically Trump was pushed to support spending more money in order to try to make sure less money would be spent.
And also of course Trump had to mostly go along with the Democrat budget because otherwise they would not be able to come to an agreement, and government needs to pass a budget, which again the media would blame him for.
Democrats had responsibility for this. (One could say Trump was pushed to have to support this)

 

An update, as of May 2023 the current debt is 31.46 trillion.
We can recalculate.

31.46 - 27.75 = 3.71

it's been 28.5 months under Biden so far. So we multiply 3.71 by 48 divided by 28.5 to get 6.25
(48 months in 4 years)
That means that if the current spending continues at the same rate, 6.25 trillion will have been added on to the debt during Biden's 4 years.

So under Biden, somewhat less money will have been added on to the debt than during Trump.
But in a way, more damage might have been done to the national debt under Biden than Trump because the high inflation has put pressure for interest rates to rise, and that's going to make it more expensive and difficult to maintain the national debt.
The Fed (Federal Reserve bank) can't keep buying up as much new government debt because that contributes to inflation, and right now they are trying to minimize adding to inflation.

There's also this: Biden proposes $6.8 trillion budget for FY 2024, trillion more than last year
It looks like Biden wants to spend more money.

 

There are 3 mid sized factors and a big one.
1. Donald Trump decided to increase liquidity, I'm not saying I agreed with that but it wasn't financial suicide.
2. COVID, and Donald Trump did not want to allow it to become a major factor in the behavior of the country, so I'm not sure I can blame him for the COVID spending, but again it wasn't financial suicide.
3. Biden decided to continue dishing out COVID money after the pandemic was over. That was an unnecessary expense.

4. Biden decided to end the dollar as the world's reserve currency, and medium of exchange.
That's the big one.

 

We're now at $32.55 TRILLION and counting.
U.S. National Debt Clock : Real Time (usdebtclock.org)

How much higher before we demand that congress and the president stop this madness and do something?

 

Biden and the US president, seem to think a bigger war is the answer.

 

Economics is so damn complicated I wounded how my uncle (mom’s brother) made it comprehensible to his students as a professor of economics. But, I’d like to have sat in on his classes.

 

Biden's term isn't over. His projected spending will far surpass Trump and he won't have an emergency such as KOVID pandemic to blame.

 

S
Can you display current data? Somehow you omitted most of Biden's term.

 

As long as they have us arguing about who caused the most debt, they win.
The point isn't who caused the most debt, almost every politician since Washington has added, in one way or the other, to the debt.
The point is, we keep sending those people to Washington to take care of our business.
And they aren't getting the job done.
Fix the damn debt, either by cutting spending or increasing taxes, or both, but fix the damn debt.
And keep your cotton picking fingers out of my tax money.

 

A number of unique economic advantages stopped working for the United States during the recession of 1974. Since then the Republican Party has tried to mask the economic decline of the United States with deficit spending. This is like taking a pay cut at work, and maintaining your standard of living with more credit card debt.

During the last full year Jimmy Carter was president the national debt was $908 billion. After the deficits of Ronald Reagan, Bush I and Bush II, and Trump this grew to $27,748 billion during Trump's last year in office.

https://www.thebalancemoney.com/national-debt-by-year-compared-to-gdp-and-major-events-3306287

If we had paid our way since Carter the overall American standard of living would be lower, but the national debt would not have grown as much, or at all, and we would not be faced with such undesirable alternatives.

 

Thank you for being interested, never in the many years I've posted it has anyone been interested.

I have some data from Oct 2020 to Apr 2023

 

By way of comment, I have real differences with both the Democrat and Republican parties,
so I don't think I'm partisan as such.

I would not blame DJT for the damage COVID measures did because he opposed those
measures, whereas Joe Biden was instrumental in approving the Maidan coup and
is apparently keen to start lots of wars right now, so I would hold him responsible
for the wars and the resulting damage to the economy and the failure to recover
after COVID.

I realize the media is against that opinion.

 

update:
As of November 9, 2023, the current U.S. debt is $33.71 trillion, meaning that $5.96 trillion has been added on to the debt during the Biden Administration so far.

Biden has been president for 33.6 months.
If we take 5.96 and divide by 33.6 then multiply by 48, we can estimate that, assuming the current rate of spending continues, the increase in the debt during Biden's presidency will end up being $8.51.

So it does appear that, as of November 2023, Biden is on track to add more to the debt than was added during the Trump presidency (including when the coronavirus pandemic happened).

 

What I hate the most about this game is the fact that people always focus on the President when it is really Congress who is to blame for it, and people always try to pin it on one party over the other when they are actually a Uniparty and "both" of them (collectively) are to blame.

 

"TPTB" want the current system to crash so that they can 6uild 6ack 6etter with a centralized digital currency system (that they have control over) that will eventually become the "Mark of the Beast" buy/sell system described in Revelation.

The direction that this world is headed towards is already recorded in The Bible.

 

It's Congress doing the spending, not the President, and "both" parties (Uniparty) are to blame for it. With that said, usually spending isn't quite as bad under a Republican-controlled Congress because there's always some MAGA-types within the Republican Party who do what they can to reign spending in a bit. (e.g. Ron Paul)

"TPTB" ultimately want the current cash system to crash so that they can 6uild 6ack 6etter with a new centralized digital currency system (that they have control over) and which will ultimately become the "Mark of the Beast" buy/sell system described in Revelation. The Bible tells us what direction this world is headed towards, and describes how bad things will get (more wars, more famines, more diseases, hyperinflation, etc) until Jesus returns.

 

Bingo.

Do we? (I don't trust the validity of our elections, nor the claimed results, anymore)
I'm afraid it's already too late to fix it. Now it's simply a matter of how much longer until the current system crashes and gets 6uilt 6ack 6etter with a more centralized/tyrannical digital system that eventually becomes the "Mark of the Beast" system.

 

LOL, I have to say you mixed in a lot of anti-Trump looniness into a couple of short paragraphs. Well done,

 

LOL, I have to say you made a response that doesn't even hold any meaning. Well done,