Donald Trump has repeatedly pledged to slash the national deficit and curb debt during his second term, but a sobering assessment of the nation’s financial health by one of the federal government’s premier fiscal watchdogs suggests Trump 2.0’s policies have not only collectively pushed the federal deficit significantly higher, but put the country on an unsustainable path.
In its latest budget and economic outlook, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), a nonpartisan federal agency, revised its cumulative deficit projection for the 2026–2035 period upward by $1.4 trillion compared with its forecast from just a year ago.
“Our budget projections continue to indicate that the fiscal trajectory is not sustainable,” CBO Director Phillip Swagel said in a statement, noting the agency’s latest projections. Under laws passed in Trump’s first year back in office, the national debt in 2030 will surpass the historic high of 106% of GDP, which it reached in 1946. Meanwhile, the balance of Social Security’s Old-Age and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund will be exhausted in 2032, one year earlier than the CBO projected last January.
Every once in a while, I dip into various Boglehead forums and see what kind of discussion is going on around their current thinking on the three fund portfolio and the way to divvy it up.
Of course, looking back only a year and trying to time/second-guess things generally goes against the principles of Boglehead investing, but you still see people wondering about it even among Bogleheads.
It is entirely possible that what the donnie crime family is doing to this country is very different than trends of the past.