alt Hacker NewsTaxpayers. Imo if we didn't have such high national debt in the US, those interest payments to the debt could have instead been used for something like national health insurance. The politicians of the past really screwed us all with the debt.
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> The politicians of the past really screwed us all with the debt.
Between his first term and his second term to date (2+ more years), Trump is responsible for more that one quarter (29%) of US debt (USD 11.6T / 40T):
* https://time.com/article/2026/08/21/national-debt-trump-bide...
There was a bit of a mitigating circumstance of COVID (for Trump and Biden), which caused the debt to jump for many countries as well (and not just the US), but it's not like Trump et co are helping the math along with all the tax cuts and asking for a US$ >1T military budget.
And the current politicians. 2.2T just this year, unbelievable.
Politicians of the past?
We're on track for an annual deficit that exceeds everything but the 2020/2021 covid era. The politicians of the present are the issue.
It turns out that even broad consumption taxes in the guise of tariffs aren't enough to offset gigantic permanent tax breaks for the wealthiest.