A Couple of Charts

 

Bobby Kogan and Jared Bernstein, a couple of economists at the Center for American Progress, published a study about the national debt that included a chart I’ve been wanting someone to create for some time now. It shows where our national debt is compared with where it would be without the Bush and Trump tax cuts. Here’s the chart.

This data shows clearly that our massive debt, which just passed $40 trillion and is now more than 100 percent of GDP, is pretty much a function of Republican tax cuts. The original chart is interactive, so you can see what the numbers are for any given year. For instance, the debt for 2026 is projected to be 102.5 percent of GDP. Without the Bush and Trump tax cuts that benefited primarily the wealthy, the debt would have been 60.43 percent of GDP. Quite manageable. The chart projects debt with and without the tax cuts through 2055. In that year, the national debt is projected to be 187.55 percent of GDP. Without the tax cuts, that figure drops to 47.85 percent of GDP.

Of course, these numbers are projections, based on a slew of assumptions, but that is how economics works. This reminds me of one of my favorite economist jokes. It seems a physicist, an engineer, and an economist were stranded on a desert island. On the beach, they found a can of tuna that had washed ashore. The physicist suggested they could build a fire, and the heat would cause the tuna to expand and explode the can. The engineer proposed that he could calculate the stresses on the can and arrange the three of them in the correct places around the fire to catch the tuna as it came flying out of the can. The engineer said, “Wait a minute. First, let’s assume we had a can opener.” My other favorite economist joke is that economists are people who work with numbers who don’t have the personality to be accountants. I have an economist friend who would take umbrage with the second joke. He is, after all, a cartoonist in his spare time. I’m not sure he would find the first joke funny.

Anyway, I’m assuming that Kogan and Bernstein used a lot of data and made the best projections they could, given the large number of factors involved. What we can be sure of is that the debt would definitely be much smaller if Republican congresses had not enacted the two tax cuts (and the extension of the Trump tax cuts in last year’s Big Ugly Billionaire Bill Act, or BUBBA). We are in a debt crisis not, as Republicans insist, because we are spending too much on things like Medicare, Medicaid, and SNAP, but because we gave the wealthy two massive tax cuts and shrunk our revenue stream significantly. And if Congress had not enacted the Reagan tax cuts, we would probably be sitting on a surplus rather than a ballooning debt.

The other chart I came across recently is an Economist/YouGov poll showing Donald Trump’s approval rating on several issues from January 26, 2025, through August 10, 2026. Apparently, not many Americans agree with Donald that we are in a “Golden Age.” Here’s the chart.

Of course, if you listen to Donald, this is all just fake news. I guess we’ll see in November. A surprising poll came out yesterday, though, in deep-red Arkansas. A Hendrix College (Conway, Arkansas) poll shows Democratic Senate candidate Hallie Shoffner now leading Republican Senator Tom Cotton, who is seeking a third term. Shoffner is a sixth-generation farmer who closed her farming operation last year because of the economic crisis facing Arkansas farmers. The damage caused by trade wars and higher diesel and fertilizer costs are making it very difficult for farmers. Shoffner said she has met voters across Arkansas who backed Trump in recent elections, but who now feel betrayed by what is happening to their communities. Yes, all fake news.