What specific COVID‑era policies account for the largest shares of debt increases attributed to the Trump and Biden administrations?
Executive summary
The largest COVID-era drivers of U.S. debt increases attributed to the Trump administration were the emergency rescue packages enacted in 2020—most notably the CARES Act and related stimulus programs that funded direct payments, expanded unemployment benefits, and the Coronavirus Relief Fund—while the Biden-era share is dominated by the March 2021 American Rescue Plan (ARP) and continuing pandemic-era executive and legislative actions including proposed student‑loan relief and major post‑pandemic spending laws that followed [1] [2] [3]. Analyses from the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget and major reporting break down those shares but vary in emphasis and in whether they include post‑pandemic, non‑COVID provisions embedded in relief bills [3] [2] [4].
1. Trump’s emergency fiscal response: CARES, direct payments and emergency funds
The largest chunk of debt growth tied to the Trump years came from the emergency fiscal response to the pandemic—principally the CARES Act and its companion programs that financed $150 billion for the Coronavirus Relief Fund and much larger flows for Paycheck Protection Program loans, direct stimulus checks and expanded unemployment insurance that together drove multi‑trillion dollar borrowing in 2020 [1] [5]. Budget trackers and news outlets attribute most of the roughly $7–8 trillion of debt growth during Trump’s first term in part to these pandemic relief measures—extraordinary, frontloaded fiscal actions designed to stabilize households and businesses during the shutdown [5] [4]. Independent fiscal analysts emphasize that some provisions were narrowly pandemic‑related while others, such as certain tax or pension provisions added into later bills, were judged by watchdogs to be “extraneous” to COVID relief [3].
2. Biden’s largest COVID‑era contributor: the American Rescue Plan
President Biden’s signature early pandemic-era policy was the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan enacted in March 2021, which the CRFB and other analysts count as roughly $2.1 trillion in pandemic‑era borrowing and which stands as the single largest Biden-era COVID policy driving near‑term debt increases [6] [2]. CRFB’s accounting separates ARP from other Biden actions and notes that some provisions of relief legislation—around $300 billion in the CRFB’s read—were described as extraneous to immediate pandemic needs (for example expansions to tax credits and some bailouts), complicating attribution of every dollar to pure COVID response [3].
3. Follow‑on Biden policies: student loan proposals and big-ticket bills
Beyond ARP, Biden’s COVID-era fiscal footprint as measured by CRFB and press coverage includes major legislative priorities enacted after the emergency phase—such as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and administrative actions on student loan relief—that together account for substantial ten‑year debt additions attributable to his term [2] [4]. The Biden administration’s student‑debt cancellation plan was estimated by CRFB at up to $330 billion before the Supreme Court struck down the policy, and alternative proposals remain under discussion with larger potential costs if implemented [3]. The Treasury Department frames these investments as essential to recovery and long‑run growth, highlighting strong post‑pandemic jobs and output, a competing narrative that downplays short‑term deficit impacts [7].
4. How analysts parse “COVID‑era” versus broader fiscal choices
Attribution disputes hinge on methodology: watchdogs like CRFB tally deficit‑increasing actions signed or finalized under a president to estimate how much policy each administration “approved,” while other accounts focus on calendar‑year borrowing increases tied directly to pandemic programs [3] [2]. That leads to widely cited ratios—reports noting Trump’s policies added more than twice the non‑pandemic debt of Biden’s, and counterarguments that pandemic timing and embedded non‑COVID provisions skew simple comparisons [4] [3]. Readers should note that fiscal‑policy advocates and departments have incentives: CRFB stresses fiscal prudence, while Treasury emphasizes recovery and growth when framing the same policies [3] [7].
5. The takeaways and limits of the record
The clearest, evidence‑backed takeaway is that the single largest COVID-era contributors to debt were the emergency rescue packages: for Trump, the CARES-era spending and stimulus in 2020; for Biden, the American Rescue Plan in 2021—while subsequent large bills, proposals such as student debt relief, and non‑COVID add‑ons embedded in relief legislation also materially raised projected ten‑year debt totals [1] [2] [3]. Precise apportionment beyond those headline items depends on methodological choices and on whether proposed but legally or politically blocked actions (like the original student loan cancellation) are counted, a limitation reflected in the differing tallies from fiscal watchdogs and government messaging [3] [2] [7].