
Trump just set a new record for the largest national debt ever — but for once, he doesn't seem to want to brag about it.

The national debt just blew through the $22 trillion mark for the very first time. It's quite an achievement for Trump, who cared deeply about the size of that debt when Obama was president — but now can't be bothered to address it at all.

Before running for office, Trump repeatedly went after President Obama for the size of the national debt. Back in September 2012, when the national debt stood at $16 trillion, he complained that Obama had "amassed more debt than the first 42 presidents." A few months later, when the debt stood at $17 trillion, Trump called it "a national security risk of the highest order" and also claimed that concerns over the debt were stopping businesses from hiring or expanding.

During the 2016 campaign, Trump also bragged that he is "the king of debt" and that "nobody knows debt better than me."


When he first took office, Trump was at least pretending to be a budget hawk, bragging that he'd decreased the debt in his first month in office and whining that "the media" hadn't reported on it.

But once Trump got his tax cuts for the rich, he apparently stopped caring about the national debt. Trump has piled over $1 trillion onto the debt since taking office, and his tax cuts are projected to add another $1.5 trillion over the next ten years.

That debt is the sum of our annual budget deficits. The Congressional Budget Office predicts that the budget deficit for 2019 will be $897 billion, a whopping 15 percent increase over 2018.

Trump, who constantly brags that he is bringing jobs back to America and takes personal credit for the unemployment rate, no longer seems to see the national debt as something that deters corporations from hiring or harms the economy. That's likely because he believes that his tax cuts are going to spur such wild economic growth that it will erase all that debt from his giveaway to the rich.

Economists don't believe that, however, and are instead worried that his tax cuts may lead to a recession by 2020.

At least Trump finally can point to something where he has bested Obama: He really is the king of debt.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.