As an astounding $1.9 trillion will be added to the federal debt this year alone, the threat of our enormous national debt continues to loom large. Indeed, as a percentage of GDP, the national debt has reached World War II levels. The trouble is that there is no national or global crisis that justifies this massive expenditure. At least in the 1940s, Americans were fighting the Nazis and Imperial Japan.

What’s the excuse today? Politicians and their deceitful rhetoric.

Joe Biden, on multiple occasions, has boasted that he “cut the deficit in half.” Back during the 2022 midterm campaign, Biden claimed, “This year, we’re on track for $1.3 trillion in cuts. And look, that would be the largest debt reduction in American history.”

As our Lewis Morris observed at the time, “This has nothing to do with Biden or Congress taking any steps whatsoever to reduce the deficit. It’s just more fiscal sleight of hand. Yes, deficits are projected to decline from $2.8 trillion in 2021 to $1.4 trillion in 2022, but this is because of the expiration of COVID relief packages.”

In other words, the reduction in deficit spending had nothing to do with Biden’s fiscal policies or supposedly good stewardship. Even CNN noted this, while also adding, “Even with a $1.5 trillion decline from fiscal 2021, the fiscal 2022 deficit is still expected to be significantly higher than the deficit the Congressional Budget Office had projected for fiscal 2022 at the time Biden took office.”

When Biden claimed he’d significantly cut the federal deficit during his 2023 State of the Union address, FactCheck.org observed, “The FY 2020 deficit was $3.13 trillion and the FY 2022 deficit was $1.375 trillion. That translates to a roughly $1.7 trillion drop. But the deficit in FY 2022 is still nearly 41% higher than it was in FY 2019, before the pandemic hit.”

If casual SOTU listeners didn’t know better, they would think that under Biden, the federal debt had decreased. Nothing could be further from the truth. Federal spending under Biden has skyrocketed, and there appears to be no slowing down, as neither Donald Trump nor Kamala Harris are offering plans to cut federal spending.

Both Trump and Harris promise tax cuts, which are not bad, though Harris also promises tax hikes for “the wealthy” and corporations (i.e., workers, consumers, and shareholders). Both candidates also tout more spending programs, which will only compound the problem.

At some point, the debt wolf will show up. This is a crisis the U.S. government can no longer ignore, as the interest payment alone on the national debt has hit $950 billion, a total that is larger than our national defense budget. How can we afford to fight a war if we spend that much money on debt interest alone?

The trouble is, as long as politicians like Biden deceive people with ridiculous claims of cutting the federal deficit in half, many Americans won’t realize just how dire the situation has become.