President Trump’s fiscal year 2020 budget projects that he would add nearly as much to the national debt in eight years as former President Barack Obama did during his tenure.
The proposed trillions in added debt proposed by the administration run counter to Trump’s criticisms of Obama and congressional Democrats.
“Funny to hear the Democrats talking about the National Debt when President Obama doubled it in only 8 years!” he tweeted on Nov. 29, 2017.
Funny to hear the Democrats talking about the National Debt when President Obama doubled it in only 8 years!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 30, 2017
Trump’s budget runs trillion dollar deficits through 2022, despite major proposed cuts to entitlements and other domestic spending.
In total, the budget sees Trump adding approximately $9 trillion to the national debt through 2024 if he stays in office that long, only slightly less than the $9.5 trillion added to the debt during Obama’s eight years in office.
Trump’s budget also relies on optimistic assumptions, including that the country will enjoy strong economic growth for all his time in office and that Congress will accept all his proposed spending cuts.
[Read more: Trump’s 2020 budget calls for $2.7T in spending cuts, promises to erase deficit in 15 years]
Trump and his advisers have often faulted Obama for adding roughly $10 trillion to the national debt. For instance, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in 2017 that Trump was ” very concerned that the debt has grown from 10 to 20 trillion dollars under the last administration and that’s something we are very conscious of.”
Acting Office of Management and Budget director Russ Vought echoed that criticism Monday, saying that “the last administration nearly doubled the national debt.”
Much of the savings claimed by the administration in the budget released Monday would not be realized until after Trump left office, even assuming he wins re-election. Under current spending and taxing levels, the U.S. would run trillion-dollar annual deficits for most of the decade.
Trump’s budget also expects a deficit over $1 trillion during the current fiscal year, for which baseline spending levels were set when a new government funding law was enacted last month.
Those deficits would be the highest since Obama’s first term, and significantly higher than deficits the Obama administration saw during its second term.
Deficit hawks blasted the Trump administration’s new budget as unrealistic.
“Unfortunately, as in previous years, he relies on far too many accounting gimmicks and fantasy assumptions and puts forward far too few actual solutions,” said Maya MacGuineas, president of the nonpartisan nonprofit Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, which advocates for reducing debt and deficits.
In her statement reacting to Trump’s budget, MacGuineas also blasted Trump’s economic projections as far more optimistic than the views of most economists.
“[A] fantasy assumption of sustained 3 percent economic growth makes a return appearance in the budget,” said MacGuineas. “Every independent forecaster foresees growth to average closer to 2 percent over the next decade. Assuming an extra point of growth serves no purpose but to mask the high deficits and debt likely to materialize under the President’s budget.”
Monday’s budget proposal predicts economic growth of 3.2 percent over 2019, nearly a full percentage point higher than the 2.3 percent 2019 projections from the Federal Reserve and Congressional Budget Office. Private sector economists also expect growth below the Trump administration’s promised three percent during 2019.
