Trump likes spending federal dollars

If you began paying attention to President Donald Trump’s political career in, say, January 2025, you might be surprised to learn that the federal debt is at a record high — some $39 trillion.

That’s about double what it was ten years ago, when then-candidate Donald Trump repeatedly objected to the debt increase under Barack Obama. But it also comes a bit over a year into a Trump presidency that, at least at the outset, was heavily centered on reducing spending.

Of course, if you began paying attention to Trump’s political career during his first term, this is much less surprising. Despite his criticisms of Obama (on a lot of things), the federal debt increased substantially the first time Trump was president. That was the case even before the coronavirus pandemic triggered an increase in spending and, by extension, the debt.

As a thought exercise, I created this interactive showing the daily increase in the federal debt during the first years of every president’s terms since 1997. Can you pick out Trump’s second term?

Despite the debt being held flat for much of the first year of Trump's second term (because of the debt ceiling), the debt increased more rapidly during that year than in all but a few other first-years-of-terms in the past 30 years.

Brookings has been tracking federal spending by day since 2019. Cumulative spending so far in 2026 is second only to spending 2021, a year when the country was struggling to combat the pandemic. Total spending in 2025 — again, the first year of a term that began with a purported focus on cutting spending — was second only to 2021 spending according to Brookings data.

Earlier this week, we learned that the Pentagon is seeking an additional $200 billion to prosecute the war in Iran. That's $1 for every $8 spent to this date in 2025.

It's also just about exactly what "DOGE" claimed it had saved Americans through its ChatGPT-vetted cuts at the beginning of 2025.

Photo: Trump meets with Columbian President Gustavo Petro Urrego, Tuesday, February 3, 2026. (Flickr/White House)