The Biden administration quickly tried to blame Republicans for America’s national debt hitting a record $34 trillion this week, even though President Biden has been in office for almost three years.
During Wednesday’s press conference, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre asserted that, “If you look at that data, there’s a trickle down debt. If you think about it, Republican tax cuts are responsible for about 90% of it — of the increase in the debt as a share of the economy over the last two decades, excluding emergency spending.”
Even though there’s a new highest record, Jean-Pierre said Biden worked to decrease the debt.
This includes signing the Inflation Reduction Act, which some experts think might end up costing the U.S. more than expected. Additionally, he’s taking steps to catch wealthy tax evaders by strengthening the IRS.
“His agenda would cut the deficit another $2.5 trillion by making the wealthy pay their fair share. So that is what the president has done. What we’ve seen on the other side is the complete opposite. What they’ve tried to do is continue to give a tax break to the millionaires and billionaires, and what they have actually put forward would add more than $3 trillion to the debt,” she added.
Reporter Edward Lawrence of FOX Business questioned Jean-Pierre about her assertions, pointing out how long Biden had previously held office and that the United States was adding $10 billion to the national debt every day without seeing a decrease. However, she went even beyond.
“Republican tax cuts are responsible for 90%, 90% of the increase in the debt. 90%. That is something that Republicans are responsible for,” Jean-Pierre responded. “[The president] put forth legislation like lowering the deficit by $1 trillion, and that’s part of lowering prescription drug costs and cracking down on the wealthy tax cheats. That’s what he’s done,” she stated.
“And meanwhile, yeah, you know what? The GOP, congressional Republicans, what they want to do is they want to continue with their ‘MAGAnomics.’ What they’ve proposed will add $3 trillion to the debt,” she further added.
Last year, President Biden faced criticism from several liberal fact-checkers. He said his administration had reduced the budget deficit by $1.7 billion, an important move in lowering the national debt. Some called his statement “misleading” and “lacking context.”
Although Biden was right that the yearly federal deficit went down from $3.1 trillion in fiscal year 2020 to $1.4 trillion in fiscal year 2022, resulting in a $1.7 trillion decrease, fact-checkers pointed out that Biden’s fiscal policies weren’t the only or main reason for the deficit reduction.
Biden continued to make the same claim multiple times in 2023.
According to findings released in May by the impartial Congressional Budget Office, President Biden’s administration ran a nearly $1 trillion federal deficit during the “first seven months of fiscal year 2023.” It was discovered that the federal government had accrued $928,000,000 in those months alone.
The national debt went up a lot in the past few years because both Biden and Trump borrowed a lot of money. This got worse when inflation increased due to the COVID-19 pandemic, making interest rates go up.
