How’s the debt?

| January 22, 2026 | 3 Comments

Dollar-Black-Hole

Well, Mr. Trump certainly roiled the waters when he brought in the Department of Government Efficiency, which began ruthlessly letting government employees go, and closing off funding for programs accused of being too woke. Thankfully, they ushered in an era of restraint in government spending and fiscal sobriety, right?

Eh, no.

Trump’s first year back in the White House closed with the U.S. national debt roughly $2.25 trillion higher than when he retook the oath of office, showing how fast Washington’s red ink is piling up even amid DOGE hype and promises to pay it down. Over the calendar year 2025, the growth in the national debt was even higher, some $2.29 trillion.

So we can assign some of the blame to Biden for about $40,000,000,000?

The total national debt has grown by $71,884.09 per second for the past year, according to Congressman David Schweikert’s Daily Debt Monitor

In terms of deficit reduction, the final monthly Treasury statement for FY 2025 (ending in September) showed a deficit of roughly $1.78 trillion, as compared to roughly $1.82 trillion for FY 2024.

Now, this is not to say Trump’s current folks are adding debt faster than anyone else has – that particular honor goes unsurprisingly to his FIRST administration, with a record year $4.6 trillion added in 2020. Remember, too, that was during Covid – the highest non-Covid year goes to Biden with $2,600,000,000,000.

Trump and Biden together own the top five highest-debt-incurring years, two for Trump and three for Biden, across five of the last six years. While the figures are not adjusted for inflation, by and large, Trump and Biden have roughly doubled the rate of debt accumulation under President Barack Obama and tripled, even quadrupled, the rate of growth under President George W. Bush, depending on which term you’re looking at.

Now, both Obama and Dubya had the 2008 recession to deal with, and the impact of their spending – particularly whether it was enough – is still being debated. What ISN’T debated, however, is that the interest alone on the current debt – just the vig – is costing us a trillion dollars a year. Let’s spell it out: $1,000,000,000,000.

Tariffs? The ones supposed to wipe out the national debt seemingly in seconds? Not hardly. They claimed $800,000,000,000 annually, right now the actual income is $300-400 billion.

As Trump retreated from many of his tariff threats—before the January 2026 spike that he threatened in relation to his desire for U.S. possession of Greenland—the CBO calculated that $800 billion of projected deficit reduction had also vanished.

At the same time, the administration has promised to share some of that tariff revenue directly with households through a proposed $2,000 “dividend” for every American, a pledge that independent analysts estimate could cost around $600 billion per year and further widen the deficit unless offset elsewhere. Fortune

Tell me again how buying Greenland can be easily done?

 

 

Category: "Your Tax Dollars At Work", Biden, DOGE, Donald Trump

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Not a Lawyer

I must have missed it in the article, but who submitted the budget for 2025? Because I am pretty sure it wasn’t anyone on the Trump team since he wasn’t in office. Oh wait, I checked the internet and it was Joe Biden who submitted it.

Surely Joe Biden wouldn’t request a budget with a $1.8 Trillion deficit? I mean that would be crazy!

Oh wait, he did.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_United_States_federal_budget

That must be like the biggest deficit ever! Oh wait, the actual numbers are in and it a few hundred billion less. In fact it is the smallest deficit in four years. But how? How could it have shrunk?

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-01-13/us-deficit-shrank-to-1-7-trillion-in-2025-thanks-to-tariff-jump

Ok, so a little bit smaller from tariff collections. But hold on here, so maybe it is smaller, and maybe isn’t much as you thought, but it is a lot and the President is still responsible for the taxing, spending and borrowing.

My 7th grade social studies teacher would be upset if I even thought that. Because the Constitution says:

The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States

But Trump’s fault because he is a madman on the loose and does all the evil in the whole world.

Murdering ICE protestors and sending innocent people back home to their country without a trial, heart transplant, abortion or gender reassignment surgery. Giving tax breaks to billionaires by eliminating the taxes on tips, which is how most people become billionaires. I know the left has ways of dealing with this. Mostly slavery and concentration camps.

Take the gloves off, fix it, but at least make the attempt at being honest and identifying where the problem actually is.

thebesig

Someone call 911! A murder was just committed!

Also, the “Trump retreated from his tariffs” is peak propaganda. Trump pulled back on his tariffs as he got what he wanted. Most of the folks criticizing Trump, when it comes to these deals compared to his previous statements and actions, have never really bargained… Or they don’t remember the last time they haggled a price before making a purchase.

As part of the negotiation process, folks ask for something much higher than what they want, then start from there. Depending on how good the negotiations go, one gets something between their higher asking price and what they “must have.” Annexation of Greenland was ideal, but getting what is truly needed for long term defense is what Trump wanted. Trump apparently got more than what he was really going after.

Kermit-at-phone-reporting-a-murder
Old tanker

You can’t place the blame only on the Whithouse. Congress makes the laws regarding the budget. The POTUS makes a suggested budget but congress has the final say and they pad the appropriations bills mercilessly. Pork, thy name id congress.