Next president will face a $35 trillion national debt impacted by both Trump and Biden

• Columnist Sid Salter writes that Americans are paying $2.4 billion per day in interest on the national debt.

Six months ago, the gross national debt of the United States exceeded $35 trillion. That total includes money the federal government owes itself, so many in government and finance rely on the lower net national debt number of about $27 trillion if that makes anyone feel one iota better.

The national debt is everything our government owes to the public – think bonds and borrowed money – and everything the government owes to itself – think Social Security and Medicare obligations. It is debt held by the public and so-called “intragovernmental” debt that the government owes to citizens through entitlement programs.

The national debt hits taxpayer wallets

The highly respected and nonpartisan Peter G. Peterson Foundation explains the national debt crisis in these ways: Our $35 trillion national debt is larger than the economies of China, Japan, Germany, the United Kingdom and India – combined. It amounts to $231,000 per every U.S. household or $104,303 for every American.

If every American household paid $1,000 per month toward the debt, it would take 19 years to pay it off – so says the Peterson Foundation. Americans are paying $2.4 billion per day in interest on the national debt.

Some six months away from a U.S. presidential election, neither the Trump-Vance campaign nor the Harris-Walz campaign is talking about the national debt. It’s as if the existential economic threat of the debt doesn’t exist for either Republicans or Democrats.

That’s because both major parties have fiscal culpabilities for the growth of the national debt. As an economic yardstick, the U.S. federal debt to U.S. gross domestic product ratio in 1980 was 34.64%. Today, that debt-to-GDP ratio is 123%.

Increased national debt came from both parties

How did we get here? Take your bipartisan pick. All U.S. presidents since Herbert Hoover had added to the existing national debt. The last U.S. president to reduce the national debt was Calvin Coolidge in 1929.

Democrat President Woodrow Wilson, Republican President Herbert Hoover and Democrat President Franklin Roosevelt saw the national debt rise through the conduct of World War I, the Great Depression, The New Deal and World War II.

Republican President Ronald Reagan added $1.86 trillion through supply-side tax cuts and increased defense spending. Fellow GOP President George W. Bush – dealing with the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the aftermath of the 9-11 attacks and a first-term recession, second-term financial sector crisis and Hurricane Katrina, added $5.85 trillion to the national debt.

Democrat Barack Obama grew the national debt by $8.6 trillion over his two terms as president. Rising healthcare expenses, through Medicare and Medicaid, have been the most substantial drivers of a growing national debt in recent years. Obama also passed one major stimulus package and implemented a late Bush stimulus package early in his first term.

The debt could grow still with the next president

More to the point of the 2024 presidential election, Republican President Donald Trump added $7.8 trillion to the national debt mostly due to COVID pandemic stimulus and relief spending and the 2020 recession.

Current President Joe Biden and his Vice President Kamala Harris, continuing the Trump policies on heavy pandemic and recession recovery spending, and through his own massive American Recovery Plan, is set through those expenditures and the bipartisan infrastructure bill to add the most of any single president to the national debt.

As has been the case for years, Social Security and Medicare entitlements as they exist today are in deep trouble and fiscally unsustainable under current law while at the same time, 78 million Baby Boomers hurtle toward retirement.

The two largest segments of mandatory federal spending are Social Security and Medicare, estimated to be $3.4 trillion. That’s nearly 60% of all federal spending, according to the Congressional Budget Office and the White House.

To read social media these days, national debt, deficits, spending strategies and policies, priorities for how debt, national defense, healthcare, cybersecurity and other challenges are of little importance. Our political parties aren’t raising those issues. Neither are our candidates.

We have six months to ask better questions and insist on more direct answers from those who wish to lead our country.