US National Debt Soars By Nearly $8 Trillion Under President Trump

While campaigning in 2016, Donald Trump promised some pretty big things when it came to fiscal responsibility and the US debt.

The Republican Party has often presented themselves as the party of fiscal restraint, and Trump, if elected President, promised to get things under control.

In fact, Trump promised that the country's national debt would be paid off in "eight years" if he was elected to the White House.

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Prior to the pandemic in 2020, the US economy was chugging along at a good clip. The stock markets were very strong, thanks to a mix of tax cuts, increased investor optimism and low interest rates.

Despite the strength of the economy, the United States continued to post large deficits.

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020, the government responded by shovelling stimulus spending out the door in order to prevent the economy from collapsing. This resulted in a very big spike in deficit spending, which meant trillions more dollars added to the US debt.

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How much national debt does the country currently have after four years of President Trump?

How much national debt was added during President Trump's four years in office? How much was added in the three years prior to the COVID-19 pandemic?

Here are the numbers:

The United States currently has $27.68 trillion in total debt.

Of this total, $21.57 trillion is "public debt" (money owed to foreign governments, individual investors, etc), while the rest is in the form of "intragovernmental holdings" (money owed to programs like Social Security).

On President Trump's first day in office (January 2017), the total debt load of the nation was $19.947 trillion.

So, over the course of a little less than 4 years, the United States added roughly $7.733 trillion in debt.

Just before the COVID-19 pandemic started in the United States, the national debt load of the country was $23.442 trillion. So, despite the relatively strong economy, the country had still added $3.5 trillion in debt.

Since the start of the pandemic, the nation has added an additional $4.24 trillion in debt, all over the course of 10 months. This number will continue to expand rapidly over the foreseeable future, as more stimulus is expected under President-elect Joe Biden.

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All in all, deficit and debt hawks have to be feeling a little light-headed as they look at these numbers, and I expect that the nation's debt levels will be a much bigger issue over the next four years.

Filed under: General Knowledge