Liberal Forum

Fuelman » Yesterday, 3:39 pm » wrote: ↑

Yesterday, 3:39 pm

That's not a headline you see very often! Time will tell about the "big, Beautiful bill".

For all the negative headlines hating on President Donald Trump‘s Department of Government Efficiency, daily data from the Treasury Department have vindicated the president’s crusade against our obese federal budget. Even without the trillions of dollars expected to come with Trump’s “one big, beautiful bill,” the White House has slowed the growth of federal debt held by the public so dramatically that the total national debt has actually shrunk since Inauguration Day. 

Admittedly, the $5.5 billion decline in a $26.2 trillion national debt is a drop in the bucket, but focusing specifically on the trajectory of the debt held by the public — that is, the majority of the national debt that is financed through the likes of Treasurys, rather than intragovernmental holdings, which is merely money one agency may owe another — we can see that the second Trump administration has indeed taken a machete to federal spending.

 From Inauguration Day to May 5, debt held by the public rose by $37,238,323,646.66. Because this accounts for an influx of revenue around April Tax Day, the comparable window to compare Trump’s performance to that of his predecessor is not Trump’s first 104 days with the last 104 days of Joe Biden (when debt held by the public rose by $521,984,501,224.88), but to the same window in 2024. From Jan. 22, 2024, to May 6, 2024, debt held by the public rose by $478,402,286,425.95. Still, that means that the growth in our outstanding national debt fell by an astounding 92%.

 Part of this is indeed due to the federal revenue generated by the early Trump business boom and the subsequent tariff regime, which may have scared markets but has slightly increased Uncle Sam’s coffers: Relative to the same 104 days in 2024, the federal government collected $21 billion more in corporate tax revenue, or a 15% increase, and nearly $6 billion in tariff revenue. But a significant portion is due to early successes at slashing spending. While spending at the Department of Homeland Security, specifically for customs collections of tariff revenue and Border Patrol, is up $42 billion from the same period in the year prior, Education Department spending was down 13%, international aid was down 42%, and some entire line items in the federal budget, such as the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, were completely defunded. 



There are a couple of crucial caveats here: Obviously, slowing the growth of our outstanding public debt by 92% is like decelerating your car while you still drive in the direction of a cliff. And while DOGE succeeded at slashing a large share of the discretionary spending the president may legally impound, any systemic spending cuts must be authorized by Congress, meaning that most discretionary spending will still continue to rise until Congress passes lasting reforms with the “one big, beautiful bill.” And none of this is to mention the mandatory spending entitlements that neither Trump nor congressional Republicans nor congressional Democrats want to touch. HOUSE REPUBLICANS MAKE PROGRESS ON PERMITTING REFORM But Trump should indeed tout this data to the effect of two crucial points: First, Trump is taking his war on waste seriously, within the narrow legal parameters he is actually allowed to operate. This marks a paradigm shift from the disastrous tenure of