Economists Blame $40 Trillion Debt Milestone on Two Things: GOP Ineptitude and Tax Cuts for the Rich
“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.”
US President Donald Trump, joined by Republican lawmakers, signs the One Big Beautiful Bill Act into law on July 4, 2025 in Washington, DC.
(Photo by Eric Lee/Getty Images)
Jake Johnson
Aug 20, 2026
Congressional Republicans have seized upon news that the US national debt reached $40 trillion to bash what they described as “unaffordable socialist policies” and out-of-control spending.
But economists and policy analysts say Republican policy decisions—from massive tax cuts for the rich to disastrous wars of choice in the Middle East—are primarily responsible for the explosion of the national debt over the past quarter-century. President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly promised to eliminate the national debt, has so far overseen an $11.6 trillion debt surge across his two White House terms.
“I have never been a deficit hawk, and I’m not about to change my religious affiliation now,” Dean Baker, senior economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, wrote Thursday. “But 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.”
Economist Paul Krugman similarly wrote that while the $40 trillion figure “has no special significance,” it underscores “the incredible irresponsibility of the Trump administration, with its unfunded tax cuts that overwhelmingly benefit the wealthy, billions in wasteful military spending—redesigning aircraft carriers because Trump doesn’t like the way they look!—and more.”
“As Jared Bernstein and Bobby Kogan have shown, our deficit would be far more manageable if first [George W.] Bush, then Trump, hadn’t rammed through tax cuts that hugely favored high-income Americans,” Krugman added.
Kogan, senior director of federal budget policy at the Center for American Progress, estimated in 2023 that tax cuts enacted during the Bush administration and Trump’s first term were “responsible 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 and the Great Recession are excluded.”
Last summer, Trump signed into law another massive tax cut package that will disproportionately benefit the rich and large corporations—and add trillions of dollars more to the national debt over the next decade.
“From now on, whenever you hear someone fret about how huge, horrible, and out-of-control the national debt is, explain to them that it’s largely because of tax cuts to the wealthy—who are also the major recipients of interest on that debt,” former US Labor Secretary Robert Reich wrote on Thursday.
The US national debt reached $40 trillion months earlier than forecasters expected, partially due to lost federal revenue from Trump’s court-invalidated tariffs.
“Before his second term is even over, Donald Trump is responsible for more than $10 trillion of this,” Rep. Chris Deluzio (D-Pa.) wrote on Thursday. “Just INTEREST on this debt is now sucking up more of our public money than even the military and Medicare. DC Republicans are leaving our kids a colossal mess to clean up.”
“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.”
US President Donald Trump, joined by Republican lawmakers, signs the One Big Beautiful Bill Act into law on July 4, 2025 in Washington, DC.
(Photo by Eric Lee/Getty Images)
Jake Johnson
Aug 20, 2026
COMMON DREAMS
Congressional Republicans have seized upon news that the US national debt reached $40 trillion to bash what they described as “unaffordable socialist policies” and out-of-control spending.
But economists and policy analysts say Republican policy decisions—from massive tax cuts for the rich to disastrous wars of choice in the Middle East—are primarily responsible for the explosion of the national debt over the past quarter-century. President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly promised to eliminate the national debt, has so far overseen an $11.6 trillion debt surge across his two White House terms.
“I have never been a deficit hawk, and I’m not about to change my religious affiliation now,” Dean Baker, senior economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, wrote Thursday. “But 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.”
Economist Paul Krugman similarly wrote that while the $40 trillion figure “has no special significance,” it underscores “the incredible irresponsibility of the Trump administration, with its unfunded tax cuts that overwhelmingly benefit the wealthy, billions in wasteful military spending—redesigning aircraft carriers because Trump doesn’t like the way they look!—and more.”
“As Jared Bernstein and Bobby Kogan have shown, our deficit would be far more manageable if first [George W.] Bush, then Trump, hadn’t rammed through tax cuts that hugely favored high-income Americans,” Krugman added.
Kogan, senior director of federal budget policy at the Center for American Progress, estimated in 2023 that tax cuts enacted during the Bush administration and Trump’s first term were “responsible 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 and the Great Recession are excluded.”
Last summer, Trump signed into law another massive tax cut package that will disproportionately benefit the rich and large corporations—and add trillions of dollars more to the national debt over the next decade.
“From now on, whenever you hear someone fret about how huge, horrible, and out-of-control the national debt is, explain to them that it’s largely because of tax cuts to the wealthy—who are also the major recipients of interest on that debt,” former US Labor Secretary Robert Reich wrote on Thursday.
The US national debt reached $40 trillion months earlier than forecasters expected, partially due to lost federal revenue from Trump’s court-invalidated tariffs.
“Before his second term is even over, Donald Trump is responsible for more than $10 trillion of this,” Rep. Chris Deluzio (D-Pa.) wrote on Thursday. “Just INTEREST on this debt is now sucking up more of our public money than even the military and Medicare. DC Republicans are leaving our kids a colossal mess to clean up.”
Matthew Chapman
August 20, 2026
RAW STORY
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) speaks with members of the media while arriving at the U.S. Capitol ahead of a two-week Easter recess starting at the end of this week, in Washington, D.C., U.S., March 26, 2026. REUTERS/Nathan Howard
A panel of experts on CNN blasted through the ramifications of the U.S. national debt hitting the $40 trillion mark.
More than a decade ago, President Donald Trump promised he could eliminate the national debt, and instead introduced a series of tax cuts that accelerated its growth.
"These are certainly eye-popping numbers for voters to see, and come as voters continue to have concerns about the Trump administration's handling of the economy," said CNN's Arlette Saenz in a sidebar.
She added that "the climbing debt isn't just a GOP issue," as debt has been rising steadily since the early 2000s among presidents from both parties — although the debt as a percent of GDP has been a bit more variable.
Meanwhile, Mark McKinnon, a longtime Republican strategist, told anchor Kasie Hunt that the implications for the GOP this election cycle are grim.
"I'll tell you this, as a campaign guy: the last thing that I want to be talking about 70 days out from a midterm election is the fact that we're busting out $40 trillion in [debt], and the stock market has taken a 700-point dive," said McKinnon, saying that the whole situation is "a really bad stew for the president."
Trump, he noted, "had largely campaigned on a macro message of sort of ... listen, just elect me and I'll go break stuff," he added. "And people said, yeah, go break stuff. And then they get turned around, and they say, wait a minute, not everything."
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