Is Tim Walz right that Donald Trump added more to the national debt than any other president?

Seeking to counter Republican accusations that Democrats spend too much taxpayer money, Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz blamed former President Donald Trump for how much the federal debt increased on his watch.

"Donald Trump added more to the national debt than any other president, ever," Walz said Sept. 21 at a Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, rally.

Whether Walz is right depends on the parameters and methods analyzed. One metric shows Trump added the most debt, but also says President Joe Biden will surpass that amount. Another metric has Trump as the president contributing the most to the national debt.

The most straightforward way to review Walz’s claim is by measuring how much the national debt rose on each president’s watch. 

Treasury Department data shows the gross federal debt rose by about $7.8 trillion during Trump’s presidency. To date, this is the largest increase during a single four-year presidential term. (President Barack Obama oversaw a debt increase of more than $9.5 trillion, which exceeded Trump’s one-term total, but Obama served two terms.)

So far, Biden has added less to the debt — $7.6 trillion — than Trump has. But Biden still has more than three months left in his term. Counting the prorated debt that the Congressional Budget Office expects to be added during that time, Biden’s one-term total is on pace to reach $8.1 trillion. That would be higher than Trump’s over an equivalent time period.

Although this method is straightforward, it’s also less precise, because much of the debt accumulated on any president’s watch stems from policies instituted by their predecessors.

In particular, much of the current federal debt stems from mandatory payments, such as those for Social Security and Medicare. These began spiking when baby boomers started drawing heavily from these programs around 2010. 

Generations of politicians in both parties approved and modified these programs long before Trump and Biden took office.

An alternative method seeks to skirt this challenge.

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The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a think tank that studies fiscal policy, calculated how much Trump and Biden policies would increase the debt over the succeeding 10 years.

The group found that during his four years in office, Trump approved policies that created $8.4 trillion of new borrowing needs — $8.8 trillion in borrowing minus $443 billion in deficit reduction.

By contrast, the group calculated that Biden enacted policies that added $4.3 trillion of new borrowing over 10 years — $6.2 trillion in new borrowing minus $1.9 trillion in deficit reduction. 

Among the most costly programs Trump enacted were his tax cut legislation, which added a projected $1.9 trillion to the debt, and government spending bills for 2018 and 2019, which added a projected $2.1 trillion.

Removing the legislation intended as pandemic relief from the calculation, as some economists recommend, Trump still created more borrowing obligations than Biden did, based on the committee’s calculations. Trump’s nonpandemic total was $4.8 trillion; Biden’s was $2.2 trillion. (Because previous presidents didn’t add nearly as much debt in any four-year period, it’s safe to estimate this is also the record for one term.)

Much of the debt allocated to Trump and Biden will not show up in the federal ledger until years after they leave office.

Walz said, "Donald Trump added more to the national debt than any other president, ever."

The increase in the federal debt on a president’s watch shows that Trump ranks first for debt in a single term, but Biden is projected to pass him by January 2025, when he leaves office.

Using a different method — counting how much future debt a president’s actions created — Trump created about double the amount of future debt than Biden did.

We rate the statement Half True.