The spending included a COVID relief bill of $2.2 trillion; the American Rescue Plan’s $1.9 trillion, and then a bipartisan infrastructure bill of $1 trillion. Mr. Biden’s 2023 budget proposal was for $5.7 trillion. In December, he signed a $1.7 trillion spending bill.

No wonder we are at a debt ceiling “crisis” to raise that level ever higher. The interest alone runs $400 billion a year. The deficit during the first three years of the Trump Presidency totaled $2.5 trillion — less than the first year of Biden’s.

We cannot slow or reduce that debt, unless unlimited entitlement programs are restrained. Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, etc. are 63% of the federal budget so obviously to reduce annual deficits, and the ever rising debt, those programs need to be changed. Reserves for Medicare’s hospital insurance fund are forecast to run out in just five years.

The debt includes payments for fraud in the pandemic relief funds that NBC News said could reach as high as $560,000,000,000. That is many, many Bernie Madoffs who made off with money we have to borrow and pay interest on.

As Vox reported: “Some culprits were domestic, but much of the fraud was targeted internet crime from foreign scammers operating in countries such as Russia, China, and Nigeria. These included self-motivated hustlers just trying to pick up what they saw as easily available money, while others were more organized criminals. It turns out that when U.S. government or state entities offer free money on the internet with minimal safeguards for Identity verification, people will come along and try to take that money.”

A recent poll showed 76% of Americans think deficit reduction should be a priority, but unfortunately Joe Biden is not one of them.