Biden-Harris irresponsible legacy: Debt is 100% of GDP, highest since WWII

The presidential campaign season is once again turning politicians into pandering game show hosts, promising voters huge tax cuts and spending expansions with no regard to the debt crisis these policies will accelerate.Budget deficits are set to exceed $2 trillion this year — despite relative peace and prosperity — and then surge to $4 trillion within a decade under current policies.For the first time since the end of World War II, the federal debt will top 100% of the gross domestic product.The impending completion of the Biden-Harris administration brings an opportunity to assess their role in these rising deficits.Joe Biden and Kamala Harris surely inherited an economic and fiscal mess.President Trump had already signed legislation and executive orders adding $4 trillion to 10-year deficits before the bipartisan pandemic response added $4 trillion more.That said, as Biden-Harris entered office, the pandemic-ravaged economy was finally reopening and Americans were returning to work.

Thus, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) forecast that budget deficits — which had temporarily leaped to $3 trillion — would drop back to the pre-pandemic $1 trillion levels as the pandemic aid expired.Instead, the administration immediately disregarded the advice of even liberal economists and pushed through his $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan.Because CBO had calculated that the recovering economy was only $420 billion short of its operating capacity, this $1.9 trillion bazooka wildly overshot its economic stimulus purpose.Consequently, just as economists warned, the excessive stimulus overheated the economy and contributed three more percentage points to an inflation rate that was already rising due to past pandemic stimulus and supply constraints.Overall, this inflation cost typical families more than $10,000.Moreover, the American Rescue Plan’s individual expenditures were largely unnecessary.This pent-up Democratic wish list included $350 billion to bail out stat...