What major policies under Biden, Trump, and Obama most drove increases or decreases in the deficit?
Executive summary
Major deficit swings in recent presidencies trace to a mix of large legislative packages, tax policy, emergency pandemic relief and interest-rate-driven interest costs: analyses attribute roughly $4.7–$6.6 trillion of net ten‑year deficit increases to Biden-era actions (with about $1.9 trillion of offsetting cuts) and put Trump-era new borrowing in the trillions as well, while Obama inherited crisis-era deficits then brought annual deficits down in later years (sources vary by methodology) [1] [2] [3].
1. COVID relief and emergency spending — the single biggest short‑term driver
The dominant cause of big near‑term deficit increases under recent presidents was pandemic-era emergency legislation and relief: Biden-era totals include large COVID‑related measures counted by many scorekeepers as the main driver of his large additions to projected borrowing, and CRFB’s accounting shows Biden approved substantial ten‑year new borrowing with much of it tied to pandemic response and recovery [1] [2].
2. Tax cuts and their persistence — Trump’s long‑run deficit engine
Large tax cuts enacted under the Trump administration — especially the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and later proposals to extend or expand them — are routinely scored as adding trillions to long‑run deficits; analyses cited by Investopedia and CRFB show Trump-era tax policy and continued tax‑cut extensions accounted for multi‑trillion dollar increases in projected borrowing over a decade [4] [2].
3. Discretionary caps, appropriations and the Fiscal Responsibility Act — bipartisan deficit moderation
Some of the deficit trajectory was altered not by headline legislation but by budget rules: the Fiscal Responsibility Act (FRA) and subsequent discretionary caps reduced projected deficits by setting lower nondefense caps and modest savings scored over a decade, and CRFB and other analysts credit these measures with generating roughly $1.5 trillion of deficit reduction over ten years [2].
4. Major single laws that add or subtract — IRA, ARP, Honoring Our PACT, and student‑loan rules
Specific statutes mattered: the Inflation Reduction Act was initially scored as deficit‑reducing but its net long‑run fiscal effect is contested; the American Rescue Plan (ARP) is widely counted as a large deficit‑increasing COVID package under Biden; other laws such as the Honoring Our PACT Act and administrative changes (for example changes tied to health‑coverage rules) were scored as adding hundreds of billions in some accounts [1] [5].
5. Executive actions, regulatory changes and bookkeeping debates
Analysts disagree on how to score executive rules and administrative rollbacks. The House Budget Committee disputes some nonpartisan estimates and emphasizes executive actions it says add around $800 billion, while CRFB and CBO‑based tallies focus on enacted legislation and CBO baseline changes—this methodological dispute explains part of the wide variance in headline “how much each president added” figures [5] [2].
6. Interest costs and shifting baselines — the hidden amplifier
Rising interest rates dramatically magnified deficit projections: Republicans on the House Budget Committee point to nearly $4.8 trillion of higher projected net interest costs under Biden driven by inflation‑induced rate increases—showing that even without new laws, macroeconomic changes and CBO baseline updates can move projected deficits by trillions [5].
7. Comparing presidents requires careful methodology — apples vs. oranges
Different trackers reach different conclusions because they measure different things: some add up gross debt increases during a president’s time in office, others total ten‑year budget windows of laws enacted while in office, and still others re‑score laws as macroeconomic conditions change. That explains why Investopedia, CRFB, PolitiFact and others report different dollar totals for Obama, Trump and Biden [4] [1] [6].
8. What the sources agree on and where they diverge
Sources uniformly agree that large tax cuts, pandemic relief and major reconciliation bills are primary drivers of past deficit increases; they diverge on magnitude because of different windows, whether to count interest‑rate effects or executive actions, and on assumptions about offsets like growth effects from tax policy or savings from later caps [4] [1] [2].
9. What reporting does not settle — lingering unknowns
Available sources do not mention precise attribution of every dollar of deficit change to specific line‑item policies across administrations; they also do not fully reconcile political claims by the House Budget Committee or the White House when methodologies differ—readers should treat multi‑trillion dollar tallies as methodology‑dependent [5] [7].
10. Bottom line for readers — read the fine print
When asked “which policies most drove deficits,” answer plainly: pandemic relief and emergency spending, major tax cuts and their extensions, large health and veterans’ bills, and rising interest costs were the main drivers; the exact dollar totals depend on whether analysts include interest re‑estimates and how they apportion laws across presidents [1] [4] [5].