Biden administration blames GOP as U.S. debt hits $34 trillion

The Biden administration quickly sought to place responsibility on the Republicans for the United States' national debt hitting a record $34 trillion this week, even though President Biden has been in office for almost three years.

"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," White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre stated Wednesday, Fox News reports.

Jean-Pierre argued that despite reaching a new peak, Biden has made efforts to reduce the debt, claiming he has enacted measures like the Inflation Reduction Act, which, according to some analysts, might end up costing the U.S. more than initially estimated. Additionally, he has focused on targeting wealthy individuals who evade taxes, partly by expanding the resources of 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.

Fox Business journalist Edward Lawrence challenged Jean-Pierre on her statements, highlighting the duration of Biden's tenure and pointing out that the U.S. had been accruing $10 billion daily to its national debt without any decrease. Despite this, Jean-Pierre firmly reiterated her position.

"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 said.

"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 added.

Last year, multiple liberal fact-checkers critically examined President Biden's assertion that his administration had cut the budget deficit by $1.7 billion, which he described as a vital step towards reducing the national debt. They labeled this claim as "misleading" and "lacking context."

While it was true at the time that the annual federal deficit had fallen from $3.1 trillion in fiscal year 2020 to $1.4 trillion in fiscal year 2022, a decrease of $1.7 trillion, the fact-checkers pointed out that Biden's fiscal policies were not the sole or primary reason for this reduction in the deficit.

Throughout 2023, Biden reiterated the same assertion multiple times.

In May, the impartial Congressional Budget Office disclosed that during the initial seven months of fiscal year 2023, the federal government under President Biden had accumulated a federal deficit close to $1 trillion. The report detailed that within just those months, the federal government had accrued a staggering $928 billion.

Ian Miles Cheong

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Ian Miles Cheong is a freelance writer, graphic designer, journalist and videographer. He’s kind of a big deal on Twitter.

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