1. United States
2. Pa.
3. Letter

Republicans love to blame the increase in the national Debt on the Biden Administration, yet they have been in power almost six of the past 10 years. You have been in Congress and approved of every budget passed some or all of that time. Here’s a comparison of administrations and their propensity to add to the national debt: Here’s how the numbers stack up, using the national debt on each president’s inauguration day as the benchmark: Trump’s first term (Jan 2017 – Jan 2021): Debt rose from $19.94 trillion to $27.78 trillion — an increase of $7.85 trillion, or about 39% . Roughly $4.5 trillion of that came in 2020 alone, driven by COVID-19 relief spending. Biden’s term (Jan 2021 – Jan 2025): Debt rose from $27.78 trillion to $36.22 trillion — an increase of $8.44 trillion, or about 30% . So in raw dollars Biden added slightly more (about $588 billion more), but as a percentage increase Trump’s first term was larger, since he started from a smaller base. Trump’s second term (Jan 2025 – present): He inherited a debt of about $36.22 trillion. As of mid-2026, total debt has reached about $39.5 trillion — an increase of roughly $3.3 trillion in about a year and a half, putting him on pace for a full-term increase in the same range as his first term or Biden’s, depending on how spending trends the rest of the term. A few caveats worth knowing: • These are gross debt figures (what’s most commonly cited); “debt held by the public” figures run lower and tell a similar but not identical story. • Comparisons are messy because presidents partly operate under the prior administration’s budget in their first year, and one-off shocks (COVID) distort the picture. • The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget’s policy-attribution analysis — measuring what each president’s own legislation/executive actions add to 10-year borrowing, rather than raw debt on their watch — found Trump approved $8.8 trillion of new borrowing over his full first term versus $6.2 trillion for Biden , a different lens that assigns responsibility differently than the “debt level on Inauguration Day” method above. Bottom line: by simple dollar totals over comparable timeframes, Biden’s term added slightly more debt than Trump’s first term, Trump’s first term had a higher percentage increase, and Trump’s second term is currently tracking at a pace that could rival either. Congress is responsible for spending. That’s YOUR job. Quit blaming the last guy, FIX IT.