The majority of the budget blowout happened as a result of Covid and was signed into law by Trump -- although it was virtually unanimous in Congress.
However, Biden poured unnecessary fuel on the fire with ARP -- which seemed an awful lot like a "well, the checkbook's open...go for it" kind of cornucopia of spending wants. And he actually wanted to go even farther with "Build Back Better" as he was targeting another $3T spending bill. As it turned out, Joe Manchin pulled his ass back off the ledge and limited the size of that one -- which still ended up nearly $1T.
And that's in addition to the infrastructure bill -- although that one is more spread out.
Moreover, it would appear that federal spending established a new baseline after COVID, rather than going back to its previous trajectory -- which was already scheduled to head to oblivion as entitlement finances deteriorate.
We get WAY too caught up in which politicians to blame/credit for anything. We need to start focusing more on the "what" and less on the "who" if we want to get this ship righted.
