Where Is the Budget Headed One Year into the Trump Administration?

After one year of the Trump administration, we assess the fiscal path implied by budget policies that the president and Congress have so far put in place. Using a new framework that holds lawmakers accountable for reforms taken and not taken, we project that over the coming decade, nearly all growth in spending will go toward higher health, Social Security, and interest costs—with little left for almost everything else: infrastructure, research, education, defense, housing, and most basic government functions. Revenues would rise by only two-thirds of those higher costs, making debt accumulate even higher, to unprecedented peacetime levels.