ANOTHER RECORD: President Trump Cuts More US Debt for a Longer Period of Time Than Any President in History

Guest post by Joe Hoft

It’s Now Official – No President in US History has Cut More from the US Federal Debt for a Longer Period of Time than President Donald J. Trump.

President Trump now can claim the longest and largest decrease of US Federal Debt in US history.

When President Trump was inaugurated on January 20, 2017 the amount of US Federal Debt owed both externally and internally was over $19 Trillion at $19,947,304,555,212.  As of August 17th the amount of US Debt had decreased by more than $100 Billion to $19,845,188,460,167.

No President in US history has ever cut the amount of US Debt by this amount and no President has resided over a debt cut like this ever. 

History buffs may say that this is incorrect because President Bill Clinton and President George W. Bush oversaw US Debt cuts over a period of a few years after the Republican Congress led by House Speaker Newt Gingrich forced Clinton into signing a balanced budget.  We thought the same, but our analysis determined that this is actually not correct.

Congress did push Clinton into signing a balanced budget but the amount of US debt during this period actually increased.  This is confirmed through data maintained by the US Treasury at Treasurydirect.gov.

The US Government Accountability Office (GAO) has performed audits since 1997 of the US Debt amounts outstanding.  In their analysis they show that when accounting for US Debt Held by the Public and US Intergovernmental Debt Holdings, the amount of US Debt has increased every year since their audits began.

The amount of US Debt Held by the Public decreased each year from 1999, 2000 and 2001 but the amount Intergovernmental Debt Holdings increased at larger amounts during this period.

The Treasury website does provide daily amounts of debt outstanding but this reporting only goes back to March 31, 2005. The Treasury does provide monthly amounts outstanding back through September 30, 2001 and annual amounts back through 1997.  The audited financial statement show the increase in US Debt annually from 1997 through 2016.

We know that no President has reduced the amount of US Debt for a longer period of time because no President has reduced the amount of US Debt since 1997.

A review of the amount of (unaudited) of US Debt outstanding back through the Civil War shows that the last time the US Federal Government had a debt decrease between years was when Republican Eisenhower was President in 1957 and 1958.  He cut the amount of US Debt by $2 Billion each year from $274 Billion in 1956 to $273 Billion in 1957 and again to $271 Billion in 1958.

No President besides President Donald Trump has cut the amount of US Debt by $100 Billion ever.

(Note that this will not be shared by CNN, the Failing NYT or the Washington Post as they are too busy reporting on former President Obama’s race war.)

 

 

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Jim Hoft is the founder and editor of The Gateway Pundit, one of the top conservative news outlets in America. Jim was awarded the Reed Irvine Accuracy in Media Award in 2013 and is the proud recipient of the Breitbart Award for Excellence in Online Journalism from the Americans for Prosperity Foundation in May 2016. In 2023, The Gateway Pundit received the Most Trusted Print Media Award at the American Liberty Awards.

You can email Jim Hoft here, and read more of Jim Hoft's articles here.

 

Thanks for sharing!