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The need to raise the debt ceiling is a bipartisan problem
Senator Dick Durbin told CNN’s ‘State of the Union’ anchor Dana Bash on Sunday that President Biden should “absolutely not” negotiate with Republicans on raising the debt.
“Those who are posing for holy pictures as budget balances, the MAGA Republicans, should note one important fact,” he said. “Almost 25 percent of all of the national debt accumulated over the history of the United States, 230 years, was accumulated during the four years of Donald Trump.”
While technically true, the majority of the ballooning US debt has happened over the past two decades under both Republican and Democratic administrations. The US debt stood at roughly $5.8 trillion in 2001, by the time Obama came to office it had doubled, giving GW Bush 18.4% share. Eight years later it nearly doubled again to just shy of $20 trillion, giving Obama almost 29.7%.
Under Trump it jumped another $7.8 trillion, 24.8%, thanks to Republican tax cuts and bipartisan measures to alleviate the fallout from the covid-19 pandemic. So far, in the two years of Biden’s term the national debt has risen over $3.6 trillion, or an 11.7% share of the overall amount over the history of the United States.
