WASHINGTON — The federal debt ticked past $22 trillion this week, a record that comes despite continued economic growth, but neither political party appears to be making a priority of debt reduction.
Larry Kudlow, the director of President Trump’s National Economic Council, said on Thursday that the president was “concerned” about the rise of the debt, and that the administration would propose some reductions in federal spending in its next budget.
But he said the scale of the debt was not “a problem.”
During the first two years of the Trump administration, the debt increased by more than $2 trillion, in part because of the $1.5 trillion tax cut and large spending increases the president has signed into law.
Leading Democrats also have left the issue largely untouched. Several members of the emerging field of presidential candidates have proposed tax increases, but they have generally presented those plans as antidotes for economic inequality, not measures aimed primarily at curbing the debt.