The US national debt will balloon by nearly $20 trillion over the next decade under the spending outlined in President Biden’s $6.9 trillion budget proposal released on Thursday.
Under Biden’s budget plan for fiscal 2024, the gross national debt would surge to nearly $51 trillion as of the year 2033 — up from its current level of roughly $31.5 trillion.
The federal debt as a share of US gross domestic product (GDP) would swell to a record 110% by 2033, up from 98% this year – shattering a dubious record that has stood since the end of World War II.
The portion of debt held by the American public would jump $19 trillion, to $43.6 trillion, over the 10 years.
A ballooning federal debt means more taxpayer dollars will go toward footing the bill for interest payments on past spending rather than funding necessary projects in the future.
The spending projections outlined in Biden’s plan are “excessive,” said Maya MacGuineas, president of the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.
“At $6.9 trillion, spending next year would be higher than any time during the pandemic and about $2.5 trillion above the pre-pandemic level, representing growth of 55 percent.”
Since Biden took office in 2021, the White House has already signed off on more than $5 trillion in new debt tied to legislation and executive orders — including a physical infrastructure bill that received bipartisan support and a broader spending bill dubbed the “Inflation Reduction Act” that passed along party lines last year.
Biden’s latest budget proposal calls for $5.5 trillion in tax hikes over the next decade to offset the cost of various projects, including increased defense spending, a pay bump for federal workers, climate change-related initiatives and extending Medicare benefits.
“It will require presidential leadership to enact real changes, and this budget does not go nearly far enough to make reining in our dangerous debt levels a top national priority,” MacGuineas said.
The White House claims the budget plan — if enacted — would reduce the federal budget deficit by nearly $3 trillion over time.
Biden’s proposal surfaced as Republicans and Democrats remain deadlocked in talks to raise the federal debt ceiling and avert the potential economic catastrophe that a US default would bring.
Republicans, who have demanded spending cuts as a prerequisite to increasing the federal borrowing limit, are all but certain to reject the president’s plan.
