{"id":49833,"date":"2026-08-21T13:17:50","date_gmt":"2026-08-21T20:17:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=49833"},"modified":"2026-08-21T13:17:50","modified_gmt":"2026-08-21T20:17:50","slug":"economists-blame-40-trillion-debt-milestone-on-two-things-gop-ineptitude-and-tax-cuts-for-the-rich","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2026\/08\/21\/economists-blame-40-trillion-debt-milestone-on-two-things-gop-ineptitude-and-tax-cuts-for-the-rich\/","title":{"rendered":"Economists Blame $40 Trillion Debt Milestone on Two Things: GOP Ineptitude and Tax Cuts for the Rich"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"President<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

US President Donald Trump, joined by Republican lawmakers, signs the One Big Beautiful Bill Act into law on July 4, 2025 in Washington, DC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0(Photo by Eric Lee\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere is one point that should be very clear: It has been run up almost entirely due to Republican tax cuts and their inept management of the economy.\u201d<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Jake Johnson<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Aug 20, 2026 (CommonDreams.org)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Congressional Republicans<\/a> have seized upon news that the US national debt reached $40 trillion to bash what they described as \u201cunaffordable socialist policies<\/a>\u201d and out-of-control spending<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But economists and policy analysts say Republican policy decisions\u2014from massive tax cuts<\/a> for the rich to disastrous wars of choice in the Middle East\u2014are primarily responsible for the explosion of the national debt over the past quarter-century. President Donald Trump<\/a>, who has repeatedly promised to eliminate the national debt, has so far overseen an $11.6 trillion debt surge<\/a> across his two White House<\/a> terms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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New Inflation Numbers Prove \u2018Catastrophic Mismanagement of Our Economy\u2019 by Trump<\/a><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"Democratic<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cI have never been a deficit hawk, and I\u2019m not about to change my religious affiliation now,\u201d Dean Baker<\/a>, senior economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, wrote<\/a> Thursday. \u201cBut whatever we think of debt and deficits, there is one point that should be very clear: It has been run up almost entirely due to Republican tax cuts and their inept management of the economy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Economist Paul Krugman similarly wrote<\/a> that while the $40 trillion figure \u201chas no special significance,\u201d it underscores \u201cthe incredible irresponsibility of the Trump administration<\/a>, with its unfunded tax cuts that overwhelmingly benefit the wealthy, billions in wasteful military spending\u2014redesigning aircraft carriers because Trump doesn\u2019t like the way they look!\u2014and more.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs Jared Bernstein and Bobby Kogan<\/a> have shown, our deficit would be far more manageable if first [George W.] Bush, then Trump, hadn\u2019t rammed through tax cuts that hugely favored high-income Americans,\u201d Krugman added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kogan, senior director of federal budget<\/a> policy at the Center for American Progress, estimated<\/a> in 2023 that tax cuts enacted during the Bush administration and Trump\u2019s first term were \u201cresponsible for 57% of the increase in the debt ratio since 2001, and more than 90% of the increase in the debt ratio if the one-time costs of bills responding to Covid-19<\/a> and the Great Recession are excluded.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

BlueSky: https:\/\/embed.bsky.app\/embed\/did:plc:drfb2pdjlnsqkfgsoellcahm\/app.bsky.feed.post\/3mthnjhbb3k2h?id=3861853595039886&ref_url=https%253A%252F%252Fwww.commondreams.org%252Fnews%252Feconomists-trump-40-trillion-debt&colorMode=system<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last summer, Trump signed into law another massive tax cut package that will disproportionately benefit<\/a> the rich and large corporations\u2014and add trillions of dollars more to the national debt<\/a> over the next decade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFrom now on, whenever you hear someone fret about how huge, horrible, and out-of-control the national debt is, explain to them that it\u2019s largely because of tax cuts to the wealthy\u2014who are also <\/em>the major recipients<\/em> of interest on that debt,\u201d former US Labor Secretary Robert Reich<\/a> wrote<\/a> on Thursday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The US national debt reached $40 trillion months earlier than forecasters expected<\/a>, partially due to lost federal revenue from Trump\u2019s court-invalidated tariffs<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBefore his second term is even over,\u00a0Donald Trump<\/a>\u00a0is responsible for more than $10 trillion of this,\u201d Rep. Chris Deluzio (D-Pa.)\u00a0wrote<\/a>\u00a0on Thursday. \u201cJust INTEREST on this debt is now sucking up more of our public money than even the military and\u00a0Medicare<\/a>. DC Republicans are leaving our kids a colossal mess to clean up.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jake Johnson<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jake Johnson is a senior editor and staff writer for Common Dreams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Full Bio ><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

US President Donald Trump, joined by Republican lawmakers, signs the One Big Beautiful Bill Act into law on July 4, 2025 in Washington, DC. \u00a0(Photo by Eric Lee\/Getty Images) \u201cThere is one point that should be very clear: It has been run up almost entirely due to Republican tax cuts… Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1879],"tags":[26],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49833"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49833"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49833\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49834,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49833\/revisions\/49834"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}