The Biden-Harris track record on spending and debt is a tragedy of epic proportions

Regardless of the outcome of next month’s election, President Joe Biden will soon leave the White House. That makes it a good time for a near-conclusive assessment of his and Vice President Kamala Harris’ first legacy in office on federal spending and debt — a tragedy of epic proportions. Unfortunately, neither Harris nor her campaign rivals have made solving this problem a priority.

According to brand new numbers from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the budget deficit in 2024 will be around $1.8 trillion. In 10 years it will be $2.8 trillion, assuming a very rosy scenario. It is also worrying that interest payments on national debt will consume over 20 percent of revenue in 2025. As Joshua Rauh of the Hoover Institution noted, if you take out the revenue earmarked for the Social Security Old Age and Disability Insurance program, that number jumps to 27.9 percent and is rising.

The federal government’s debt is currently estimated to be over $28 trillion. That’s $2 trillion more than last year and $6 trillion more than when the Biden-Harris team entered the White House. This debt is 100 percent of America’s gross domestic product (GDP), which, with the exception of a one-year exception at the end of World War II, is the highest we have ever had. Unlike in 1946, debt today will only grow. In fact, debt to GDP fell for nearly 30 years, reaching 23 percent in 1974. Today it is forecast that national debt will rise to 166 percent in 30 years – again under the rosiest scenarios.

Now the Biden-Harris administration is not the only one responsible for this debt spiral. Former President Donald Trump was also bad. As Brian Riedl recently wrote, “Trump had already signed legislation and executive orders that added $4 trillion to the 10-year deficit before the bipartisan response to the pandemic added another $4 trillion.” That’s serious red ink.

But when Biden and Harris took office, we had most of the pandemic behind us. The economy restarted, vaccinations were carried out and the economy grew again. However, the end of this emergency did not mean a return to lower spending and lower debt levels. Biden had other plans. Instead of suggesting, as then-President Barack Obama did after the Great Recession, that he would cut the deficit in half in five years, Biden decided it was time to expand pandemic emergency programs.

Three months into the term and four months after the last $900 billion COVID-19 relief bill, the Biden-Harris administration pushed through another $1.9 trillion bill. This spending was so disproportionate to the state of the economy, which faced an output gap of just $420 billion, that we suffered the worst inflation in 40 years. Not only was this a serious blow to the deficit, but it also cost the typical family more than $10,000.

The administration then decided to enforce several large, unpaid bills. Riedl lists a few: “$1.4 trillion in new spending in the form of omnibus appropriations bills, $620 billion in student loan bailouts, $520 billion in new veterans benefits, a $440 billion infrastructure bill , a semiconductor law and $360 billion in new spending.” [Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program] and health care spending enforced by presidential executive order.”

Some economists have incorrectly insisted that increasing debt is no big deal as long as interest rates are low. This condition certainly does not apply to the Biden-Harris spending spree. Add everything up, including interest payments on the debt, and you get $5 trillion on top of what was already there.

The impact of this irresponsible spending spree can be clearly seen in other CBO figures. When Biden and Harris entered the White House, the budget deficit was $2.3 trillion due to the pandemic and was expected to fall to $905 billion by 2024. As mentioned above, it is now twice as high as expected.

Even that is nothing compared to what Biden and Harris wanted to spend. They tried to push through the $2.3 trillion “Build Back Better” law. The Supreme Court has blocked a much larger version of the student loan forgiveness program.

This White House has been terrible for our finances. Now that Harris is running for the top job, she shows no signs of curbing her spending. She wants trillions of dollars in tax credits for a wide range of stakeholders, from first-time homeowners to parents to preferred industries, and she continues to advocate for student loan forgiveness. Trump, with his expensive populism, is only slightly better.

No matter who wins the election, that person will inherit a gigantic deficit and high interest payments that will only increase thanks to an explosion in entitlement spending that no politician wants to acknowledge. Good luck to the next president and heaven help the rest of us.

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