While campaigning in 2024, President Donald Trump pledged that he would eliminate the entire national debt in just one term. What’s more, he insisted he’d do it without cutting “one penny” from Social Security or Medicare. Instead, he suggested that he would eliminate the debt magically via growth, crypto, and tariffs. But according to Atlantic columnist David Frum, not only were Trump’s “absurd” plans little more than “fantasies,” but the bill has come due with potentially disastrous consequences.
“Basic budget math contradicted Trump’s fantasies,” writes Frum. “The United States imported about $3.3 trillion in goods in 2024. The budget deficit for that year was about $1.8 trillion. To imagine that tariffs could eliminate the budget deficit required believing that the Trump administration would impose a 55 percent tariff on all imports — including oil, natural gas, and electricity — and that consumers would pay this tariff without altering their buying behavior at all. That was all obviously absurd.” His “Plan B” involved having Elon Musk balance the budget via DOGE, who promised to slash $2 trillion from federal spending. According to Frum, this venture “not only likely violated the Constitution but also almost certainly worsened the deficit. DOGE reduced the IRS auditing staff by nearly one-third. The Yale Budget Lab estimates that the ensuing collapse in federal enforcement efforts will cost the Treasury more than $860 billion in revenue over the next decade.” Another way to look at the situation: The U.S. debt hit $10 trillion for the first time during the financial crisis of 2008, which once seemed a crushing burden. Now, Trump’s “fiscal recklessness” has tacked on another $10 trillion in just four years.
According to Frum, it’s clear how this happened. Trump’s tax cuts reduced government revenues by $4.5 trillion over the next decade, and his cuts to food stamps and Medicaid reduced spending by just $1.1 trillion. In total, Trump’s budget plans netted out to $3.4 trillion in direct costs over the decade ahead — and that grows to $4.1 trillion because of the rising costs of debt service in the Trump era. And his key approach to solving the crisis – substituting tariffs for other government revenue – proved not only economically unrealistic but also illegal. As Frum explains, “Tariffs are taxes, and taxes must be voted for by Congress, according to the Constitution. Congress delegated some emergency tariff authority to the president, but not enough to create a permanent new scheme of revenue. The Supreme Court confirmed this basic rule in February 2026.”
From here, warns Frum, “The situation will continue to get worse.” Trump’s war on Iran has cost at least $45 billion so far, and the Pentagon has requested hundreds of billions of dollars more. Moving forward, Trump’s fiscal budget for 2027 seeks $1.5 trillion for the U.S. military, up 44 percent from pre-Iran-war levels. What’s more, Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act reduced income taxes on Social Security benefits, and Trump’s inflation has driven increases in Social Security’s cost-of-living adjustment. The Social Security trust fund is now projected to be exhausted in 2032, forcing either big tax increases or big benefit cuts. With all this in mind, concludes Frum, one fact is unavoidable: Trump “has managed to wreck the country’s finances worse than any government in U.S. history.”