Donald Trump has repeatedly pledged to slash the national deficit and curb debt during his second term, but a sobering assessment of the nation’s financial health by one of the federal government’s premier fiscal watchdogs suggests Trump 2.0’s policies have not only collectively pushed the federal deficit significantly higher, but put the country on an unsustainable path.
In its latest budget and economic outlook, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), a nonpartisan federal agency, revised its cumulative deficit projection for the 2026–2035 period upward by $1.4 trillion compared with its forecast from just a year ago.
“Our budget projections continue to indicate that the fiscal trajectory is not sustainable,” CBO Director Phillip Swagel said in a statement, noting the agency’s latest projections. Under laws passed in Trump’s first year back in office, the national debt in 2030 will surpass the historic high of 106% of GDP, which it reached in 1946. Meanwhile, the balance of Social Security’s Old-Age and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund will be exhausted in 2032, one year earlier than the CBO projected last January.
Yeah, the new deal was a prime example of it working. When there’s no work because nobody has any money to spend because there’s no work like in the great depression the government taking out loans to hire a bunch of people to improve the country in various ways is a great investment. It breaks the deadlock. But if you don’t take it back out of times where the economy can handle some slowing you just get inflation and you lose your control lever for when the economy slows down. High highs cause low lows, and while nobody likes the economy slowing down (hence why presidents stopped doing it) people prefer a stable economy with lessened booms and busts