National Debt Projected to Increase Under Both Candidates

The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget recently released an analysis that examined the potential impact on the U.S. national debt if Kamala Harris or Donald Trump were elected in the 2024 presidential election. According to the report, Vice President Kamala Harris’s proposed policies could raise the national debt by $3.5 billion over the next 4 years while former President Donald Trump’s economic plans could add between $7.5 trillion and $15.2 trillion to the debt.

These estimated impact to the national debt are higher than the conclusions by other think tanks. Neither the Harris and Trump campaigns have offered to draft policies to address the national debt.

The total federal debt now tops $35 trillion requiring payments of over $1 trillion a year in interest — more than the cost of certain programs like Medicare and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. The amount of debt works out to over $100,000 per citizen and to over $250,000 per taxpayer.

Earlier this year, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell warned that the nation is on an unsustainable fiscal path and weighed in on the escalating federal debt and its economic implications.

Image credit: U.S. Department of the Treasury, Fiscal Service