Trump legislation added $4.7 trillion to debt: watchdog

Published date; Jan 9, 2020

President Trump has signed bills into law that will add $4.7 trillion to the debt through the end of 2029, according to a study by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, an anti-debt advocacy group.

Four pieces of legislation contributed the lion’s share of the new debt, the group said. The 2017 GOP tax cut, the largest of the bills, will add $1.8 trillion to the debt by the end of 2029, researchers noted, adding that the bipartisan 2019 budget deal to increase spending caps was a close second, at $1.7 trillion.

The final set of appropriations bills that Congress approved in December added another $500 billion, mostly through the repeal of three taxes that were meant to pay for the Affordable Care Act, the group said.

“Debt is rising on an unsustainable path,” the group wrote in the report.

“Thanks to legislation passed since 2017, the nation is facing trillion-dollar annual deficits for the foreseeable future without action is almost certain to surpass the record debt levels set after World War II in the coming years,” it added.

As a candidate, Trump said he would eliminate the debt, and his administration has frequently promised spikes in economic growth that never materialized to reduce it.

Since he took office, the overall debt has risen from just under $20 trillion to just over $23 trillion.

On Wednesday, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that the deficit increased 12 percent, some $39 billion, in the first quarter of the 2020 fiscal year, which began in September. The annual deficit is expected to surpass $1 trillion for the first time since 2012.

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