Is a quarter of the national debt attributable to budget deficits accumulated during the first Trump administration? Several viral posts claim that 25 percent of U.S. debt is the result of spending during Donald Trump’s previous term.
“Friendly reminder that 25% of the entire national debt was run up during the first Trump Administration,” says one version of the post with more than 19,000 likes. “America’s not broke. We’re being robbed.”
The post is mostly true, but lacks important context. Growth in debt during a president’s time in office does not necessarily reflect how much that administration actually added to the debt.
The national debt is the amount of outstanding money borrowed over time by the U.S. government. When administrations run budget deficits—meaning when the government spends more money than it brings in—the government is forced to borrow to make up the difference, adding to the national debt. While decisions made by presidential administrations can and do influence the national debt, debt accumulation usually derives from policies implemented before a president takes office, meaning debt growth itself is not always a reliable indicator of how much a particular president contributed to and increased—or decreased—the national debt.
The posts’ claim that debt accumulated during Trump’s four years in office makes up a quarter of the current national debt is mostly true, but slightly overstated. On January 20, 2017, the day Trump took office, the total U.S. public debt was approximately $19.9 trillion. By January 20, 2021, Trump’s final day in office, the national debt had increased to nearly $27.8 trillion, a $7.9 trillion increase. This $7.9 trillion increase is approximately 21.8 percent of the outstanding national debt as of January 3, 2025.
While the debt did increase by $7.9 trillion during Trump’s first term, most of that rise derives from policies enacted under prior administrations. This is true for any president, all of whom inherit initiatives passed by prior administrations. “Some presidents inherit a baseline of soaring deficits, others inherit a baseline of budget surpluses, and their ability to alter those dials is quite limited,” Brian Riedl, economist at the Manhattan Institute, told The Dispatch Fact Check last year. “Presidents inherit a baseline of either rising or falling deficits that is almost entirely on autopilot. They cannot unilaterally adjust taxes or mandatory spending, they must first persuade Congress to pass legislation altering those policies.”
Before Trump entered office, for example, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated that budget deficits from 2017-2027 would total $10 trillion—a figure based on existing spending commitments and economic projections from before Trump became president. “Presidents not only have little control over inherited budget baselines, they have similarly limited control over broad economic trends,” Riedl explained. “As a result, a better measure of presidential contributions to deficit spending is the aggregate cost of legislation signed by each president himself.”
According to research by Riedl, Trump signed or enacted about $7.8 trillion in new spending during his four years in office, including the nearly $4 trillion spent on Congress’ bipartisan response to the COVID pandemic. This spending—even though it was partially offset by $3.9 trillion in actual and projected savings predominantly derived from interest rate adjustments and higher tax revenues from better-than-expected economic growth—is a more accurate measure of how much Trump’s policies added to the national debt.
Spending during the Trump administration accelerated quickly in response to the pandemic, but its nearly $4 trillion in nonpandemic debt increases still outpaced spending during the two-term presidencies of both George W. Bush and Barack Obama. The Bush administration approved approximately $6.9 trillion in new initiatives between 2001 and 2009, while the Obama administration approved nearly $5 trillion between 2009 and 2017. This pattern of increased deficits has continued under Biden. As of September 2024, the Biden administration had approved more than $5 trillion in new 10-year costs since taking office.
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