John Smyth
2024-09-25 17:08:22 UTC
Reply
Permalink'Biden-Harris’ irresponsible legacy: Debt is 100% of GDP, highest since
WWII'
<https://nypost.com/2024/09/24/opinion/biden-harris-irresponsible-legacy-debt-is-100-of-gdp-highest-since-wwii/>
'Under Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, federal spending and debt are at the
highest levels in US history outside of wars and recessions. Here's how
public-held debt has compared to the Gross Domestic Product dating back
to 1790. This year debt will hit 100% of GDP, a level seen only once
before, at the end of WWII.
NY Post composite
The presidential campaign season is once again turning politicians into
pandering game show hosts, promising voters huge tax cuts and spending
expansions with no regard to the debt crisis these policies will
accelerate.
Budget deficits are set to exceed $2 trillion this year — despite
relative peace and prosperity — and then surge to $4 trillion within a
decade under current policies.
For the first time since the end of World War II, the federal debt will
top 100% of the gross domestic product.
The impending completion of the Biden-Harris administration brings an
opportunity to assess their role in these rising deficits.
Joe Biden and Kamala Harris surely inherited an economic and fiscal
mess. President Donald Trump had already signed legislation and
executive orders adding $4 trillion to 10-year deficits before the
bipartisan pandemic response added $4 trillion more.
Post-pandemic toll
That said, as Biden-Harris entered office, the pandemic-ravaged economy
was finally reopening and Americans were returning to work. Thus, the
Congressional Budget Office (CBO) forecast that budget deficits — which
had temporarily leaped to $3 trillion — would drop back to the
pre-pandemic $1 trillion levels as the pandemic aid expired.'
'Instead, the administration immediately disregarded the advice of even
liberal economists and pushed through President Biden’s $1.9 trillion
American Rescue Plan.
Because CBO had calculated that the recovering economy was only $420
billion short of its operating capacity, this $1.9 trillion bazooka
wildly overshot its economic stimulus purpose.
Consequently, just as economists warned, the excessive stimulus
overheated the economy and contributed three more percentage points to
an inflation rate that was already rising due to past pandemic stimulus
and supply constraints.
Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have left America (and their successor) a
fiscal nightmare
Overall, this inflation cost typical families more than $10,000.
Moreover, the American Rescue Plan’s individual expenditures were
largely unnecessary. This pent-up Democratic wish list included $350
billion to bail out state budget deficits that did not actually exist, a
bloated union pension bailout, and a decade’s worth of additional
federal school funding — all sold to the public with added unemployment
benefits, taxpayer rebates and child tax credits.
$28.2 trillion owed
The Biden-Harris administration’s spending spree did not stop there. It
also signed $1.4 trillion in new spending in omnibus appropriations
bills, $620 billion in student loan bailouts, $520 billion for new
veterans’ benefits, a $440 billion infrastructure law, a semiconductor
bill, and $360 billion in new SNAP and health spending forced through by
executive order.
The offsetting savings promised in the Inflation Reduction Act and
Fiscal Responsibility Act are unlikely to materialize.
Adding it all up and including the resulting interest costs brings the
total to more than $5 trillion in new 10-year costs enacted under
President Biden.
And that bloated figure would have been even higher had the Supreme
Court not blocked an even larger student loan bailout, and had a
Democratic Congress not reached its breaking point and blocked the
original “Build Back Better” proposal costing $2.3 trillion.
Nearly all of this spending occurred during the first two years of the
Biden-Harris administration, before inflation-weary voters staged their
own intervention and elected a Republican House in late 2022.
Thus, instead of the pandemic’s conclusion returning budget deficits to
$1 trillion as CBO had projected, the Biden-Harris spending pushed the
deficit back up to $2.8 trillion in 2021, and approximately $2 trillion
this year.
Debt will hit a shocking $50 trillion by 2034, as DC continues to spend,
spend, spend
The results are shocking:
The CBO-projected deficit for the cumulative 2021-2031 period has jumped
from $14.5 trillion to $21.3 trillion — reflecting an additional $6.8
trillion in deficits.
Last year’s federal spending level (24% of GDP) and budget deficit (7.5%
of GDP) were both the largest in American history outside of wars and
recessions.
The US debt is expected to be $28.2 trillion this year, 100% of the GDP
— the highest level since the end of WWII.
Since 2021, annual interest costs have nearly tripled, from $352 billion
to nearly $1 trillion.
The debt held by the public is currently $212,600 per household.
White House gaslighting
Rather than take responsibility for this sea of red ink, the White House
gaslit voters by claiming to have reduced budget deficits.
Biden brags that his $2 trillion budget deficits are $1 trillion below
the 2020 pandemic peak of $3 trillion.
Of course, that 2020 figure was a one-time pandemic anomaly that had
been preceded by $1 trillion deficits that were expected to return as
soon as the economy reopened and pandemic aid expired.
Essentially, the president is treating the previously scheduled
expiration of temporary pandemic spending as his own historic spending
cut — and then spending its savings. This gaslighting was rebuked by the
fact checkers at the Washington Post with a rare “Bottomless Pinocchio”
rating.
Biden’s successor will inherit $2 trillion deficits, soaring interest
costs, and Social Security and Medicare trust funds approaching
insolvency. Truly a dismal fiscal record that leaves Washington closer
to a debt crisis.'