US debt exceeds 100 percent of GDP

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21. MaddowBlog-National debt crosses a historic threshold, exposing absurdity of Trump campaign promises

In his first term, the president said he’d “easily” reduce the debt, but he delivered the opposite results. In his second term, it’s happening again.

National debt crosses a historic threshold, exposing absurdity of Trump campaign promises - MS NOW apple.news/Abbys4GLtSku...

— (@oc88.bsky.social) 2026-05-01T19:27:47.232Z

https://www.ms.now/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/national-debt-crosses-a-historic-threshold-exposing-absurdity-of-trump-campaign-promises

Throughout Barack Obama’s presidency, congressional Republicans warned that the nation was facing a devastating debt crisis, which would bankrupt the United States and devastate the nation’s fiscal standing for generations. GOP officials warned that without dramatic action, the enormous national debt would reach the same size as the overall U.S. economy — a threshold that would spell immediate doom.

Roughly a decade later, take a wild guess what threshold we just crossed. The Wall Street Journal reported:

The U.S. national debt now exceeds 100% of gross domestic product, crossing a once-unthinkable threshold, on the way toward breaking the record set in the wake of World War II. […]

By itself, the milestone doesn’t mean much. There isn’t a special level where debt goes from problematic to catastrophic. And the ratio might bounce around in coming quarters as tax receipts come in, tariff refunds go out and GDP fluctuates in response to inflation and revisions. Still, the triple-digit mark is a potent symbol of the fiscal stresses on the U.S. that have been building for decades.

.....While we’re at it, we could also spend some time talking about the fact that deficit reduction is no longer a Republican priority at all — it was, for example, entirely ignored in the latest White House budget proposal — as GOP policymakers focus instead on massive tax breaks (which make the debt worse) and massive increases in defense spending (which also make the debt worse).

.....Once in office, deficits predictably exploded as a direct result of the Republican’s policies. By the end of his first term, Trump had added nearly $7.8 trillion to the national debt in just one term, and most of that total was racked up before the Covid crisis.

Nevertheless, when he returned to the campaign trail ahead of the 2024 race, Trump apparently felt comfortable pulling the same trick twice, telling voters, “We’re going to pay off … the $35 trillion in debt. We’re going to pay it off. We’re going to get it done fast, too.”

The president returned to power and added an additional $1.8 trillion to the debt during the first year of his second term.

If recent history is any guide, voters will eventually elect another Democratic president, at which point Republicans will again pretend to care about the nation’s fiscal health. But when that happens, there will be no reason to take the GOP’s claims seriously.