Donald Trump has been spending money like a trust fund baby on spring break with daddy’s credit card*. This fits him because he WAS a trust fund baby who “earned” his first million by age eight. While he promised to “completely eliminate the national debt” back in 2016, he instead added $7.8 trillion. So far during his second term he has added $3.1 trillion to that figure. At this rate he will bring our debt to $45 trillion before leaving office.
He, without support from Congress, started a war in Iran that will now directly cost taxpayers as much as $1 trillion over the next decade. Before the war the federal government was already on track to run a $1.853 trillion deficit for 2026. As of July, the war has cost us $37.5 billion, Hegseth wants another $70 billion, and our bases in UAE and Qatar have suffered an estimated $5 to $30 billion in unbudgeted damages. Trump is asking for $1.5 trillion defense budget for 2027 (spike of $440 billion). The war has also forever changed the flow of oil and gas in the region with billions being spent to bypass the Strait of Hormuz. Those expenses will be passed on to consumers.
The U.S. is now weaker with the loss of much of our missile capability (80%), poorer financially, and shamed by defeat at the hands of a small but tough opponent. Trump will try to spin this as “one for the win column” but we can all see that for what it is, TBS.
His DOGE boys ran helter skelter through the government, cutting programs that shifted financial burdens to unwitting lower classes with the promise of a tax cut. The end result was higher costs for average consumers and more money for corporations and the wealthy. Those same DOGE cuts also did wholesale damage to the nation.
As a dealmaker in the political arena he has not fared much better than he did in the private sector. While he often benefited from his deals, somebody ended up paying. Trump calls those who pay, losers. In the political arena that ends up being the average wage-earning taxpayer. He, on the other hand, is making more money than at any other time in his life.
Trump has always been a big spender, but he has wisely used OPM, Other Peoples Money. His gift for staying personally solvent, as with most successful business types, is to always use OPM and never risk your own capital. Now, in the public sector, the “OPM” means it is taxpayers at risk and not unwitting investors. Before he was 45 or 47, he had burned most domestic financial bridges and son Eric bragged in 2014, "We don’t rely on American banks. We have all the funding we need out of Russia." So, it is no wonder that he favors Russia in our international policy decisions.
According to Forbes, “Donald Trump is not just on track, but has already shattered all historical records for earning money while in office. Financial disclosures from his second term show he brought in upwards of $2.2 billion to $2.4 billion in a single recent year—dwarfed largely by unprecedented cryptocurrency ventures, foreign real estate, and licensing deals—an amount completely unrivaled in American presidential history.”
*In previous writings I have compared Trump’s spending to a sailor on a “vampire liberty.” That rather obscure reference is from a different time when it was common practice for sailors to sell their blood for cash so they could afford to buy alcohol. The lower blood levels meant faster intoxication, more spending. As Trump doesn’t drink, I think the trust fund baby on spring break analogy is closer to home.
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