Debt headache

...the proof is in the numbers: Under Trump, the U.S national debt has passed the $21 trillion mark.

Do you remember when the GOP was refusing to help Obama with an infrastructure bill because they were worried about increasing the national debt and deficit? Remember deficit hawks? I didn't think so.

My how things change. Love the part in the Woodward book where Trump is asking Cohn why he can't just print more money?

Great article over at Axios, Jonathan Swan's The President of Debt. It links to this August article, The Trump administration is headed for a giant debt headache.

The total U.S. debt just passed the $21.3 trillion mark, of which $15.6 trillion is owed by the public. The Treasury announced Wednesday that it will be adding $1 billion each to auctions of 2-, 3- and 5-year debt over the next three months, and $1 billion each for 7- and 10-year note and 30-year bond auctions in August. In addition, the department is issuing a new two-month note to help assure liquidity in the fixed income market.
The changes will add $30 billion to the debt issuance for the quarter. On the overall, the Treasury said it expects to borrow $769 billion in the second half of the year, a projected 63 percent increase from 2017.
"Booming economic growth has not been sufficient to lower the budget deficit — in fact, the deficit and Treasury borrowing are headed sharply higher, and virtually no one in Washington seems to care," Greg Valliere, chief global strategist at Horizon Investments, said in his daily note Thursday.

I sent it over to my friend Jim Swan (no relation), who is a fiscal conservative and a nominal Trump supporter and got back this note:

Not sustainable! Trump will add as much debt in four years as Obama did in eight years!
I’m tired of all these pols.
Jim

I appreciate Jim calling a spade a spade here. He is of course, right. This whole Trump "recovery" is based on a big tax cut and a huge drop in revenue. Anybody can spend like a sailor. It is only a matter of time before the chickens come home to roost. If the Democrats tried a similar sleight of hand of course there would be howling in the street.

Under Obama debt and deficits were more temporary in nature and tied to the recession. The Trump debt is unfortunately permanently baked in with his tax cut revisions which permanently cut revenue. And it looks like things will only get worse.

When the House returns to Washington in September, it is set to consider another tax cut that could reduce revenue by an additional trillion dollars. None of this includes the natural and man-made disasters — everything from earthquakes, forest fires and hurricanes to military, terrorist and foreign policy situations — that occur each year and cost more than planned.
Nor does it include interest on the national debt. The combination of big increases in federal borrowing from the very large deficits and the need for Washington to roll over its sizable short-term debt at higher interest rates will make this the fastest growing spending of all.

Put your seat belts on!