A friend writes via text, “What’s the best and easiest site to look at debt by each President? Got a Trumper saying Trump had a surplus minus the Covid money.” On the scale of crazy I’ve heard this election cycle, this is one of the least crazy. Of course, the person who is making this claim that my friend asked about is completely and utterly wrong, but it’s still one of the least crazy things I’ve heard. Sigh. I’m so ready for this election cycle to be over.
Now, I’ve already sent this friend the information to answer his question, but I thought this was worth taking a deeper dive because some context is needed. First, Congress hasn’t seen a budget surplus since FY 2001. That was the last of four consecutive years of budget surpluses under a Republican-controlled Congress and a Democratic president. We’d have to go back to FY 1960 to find another budget surplus.
Second, when we talk about federal spending these days, it’s almost entirely in the context of discretionary spending. Discretionary spending is subject to congressional appropriation. Mandatory spending—which includes Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid—and net interest are on autopilot and not subject to congressional appropriation.
Finally, although Trump assumed office on January 20, 2017, the federal government was already a little more than three months into FY 2017. The federal government operated on continuing resolutions (CRs) through April 2017. Does Trump deserve blame for the deficit of an appropriations bill he didn’t sign into law? I would argue he does. He didn’t do anything to reduce spending, and he signed a consolidated appropriations bill into law in early May 2017 that increased discretionary spending levels for FY 2017.
As a matter of clarification, discretionary spending—again, the spending subject to congressional appropriation—was 30.1 percent of all federal spending in FY 2017, 30.7 percent in FY 2018, and 30.7 percent in FY 2019. In FY 2024, discretionary spending was 26.4 percent of federal spending. Mandatory spending in FY 2017, FY 2018, and FY 2019 was 63.3 percent, 61.3 percent, and 61.5 percent of federal spending. Net interest in FY 2017, FY 2018, and FY 2019 was 6.6 percent, 7.9 percent, and 8.4 percent. Again, mandatory spending and net interest aren’t subject to congressional appropriation, and both are the primary drivers of federal budget deficits today.
Before we dive into this, as is always the case, I used data from the Congressional Budget Office when writing about the federal budget and the Office of Management and Budget. In this case, I used both sources since the Congressional Budget Office’s historical data goes back to FY 1962 while the Office of Management and Budget goes back to FY 1930. For the charts, parties in control of the White House are noted by the party’s traditional color. In other words, Trump (red) is the color from FY 2017 through FY 2020.
The budget deficit in FY 2016 was $584.7 billion, or 3.2 percent of gross domestic product (GDP). The deficit increased each year Trump was in office, beginning in FY 2017, when it came in at $665.4 billion. In FY 2018, the deficit was $779.1 billion. In FY 2019, the deficit was $983.6 billion. The biggest increase was in FY 2020, but that includes the response to COVID-19. The pre-COVID-19 projection for FY 2020 was $1.015 trillion, or 4.6 percent of GDP.
The share of the debt held by the public jumped from $14.7 trillion in FY 2017 to $16.8 trillion in FY 2019 to $21.0 trillion in FY 2020, or 76.2 percent of GDP to 77.6 percent of GDP to 99.8 percent of GDP.
Some may say we should judge Trump based only on the primary deficit. The primary deficit is revenues minus outlays, excluding net interest. The math still doesn’t produce a surplus. I see primary deficits of 2.1 percent of GDP in FY 2017, 2.2 percent of GDP in FY 2018, and 2.9 percent in FY 2019. Factor in net interest, the deficit was 3.5 percent of GDP in FY 2017, 3.8 percent in FY 2018, and 4.6 percent in FY 2019.
I don’t know how to make it any clearer. Trump didn’t run a budget surplus. In fact, the budget deficit increased every year he was in office. His campaign rhetoric that he will pay off the debt just isn’t reality. First, that can’t be done without modernizing Social Security and Medicare, which Trump has said he won’t touch. Second, the net interest is growing out of control, and I fear it’s only going to get worse as interest rates will have to rise for our securities to remain attractive to those who buy our debt. This is a direct result of inaction on Social Security and Medicare.
Finally, all of Trump’s campaign promises are adding up, and Trump’s campaign promises could add as much as $15.1 trillion over ten years. That’s double what Vice President Harris’s campaign promises would add to the deficit. Now, I don’t believe for a second that either of them would get most of their campaign promises through Congress. That doesn’t make me rest any easier.