White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller speaks to members of the press outside the West Wing of the White House in Washington on August 29, 2025.
Andrew Caballero-Reynolds | AFP | getty images
The US national debt exceeded 100% of GDP last month, putting the country on track to break the record of 106% of GDP set in 1946., Coming out of World War II. This record is on pace to be broken around 2029, just as Donald Trump’s presidency ends, non-partisan Congressional Budget Office Estimate.
Deputy White House Chief of Staff Stephen Miller has identified a criminal Otherwise, it could be a grim legacy, he said Tuesday at a Trump administration anti-fraud event.
Miller said, “Based on what I’ve seen and what I’ve heard, I believe we can balance the federal budget if the only dollars coming out of the treasury are given to individuals who are reasonably legally eligible to receive them.”
Miller’s figures far exceed the federal government’s published estimates for misspent money, and ignore that immigrants generally help improve the budget deficit, not worsen it. But the problem is not just confusing mathematics. The Trump administration’s inability to take the deficit seriously is worsening Americans’ affordability crisis today and threatening a future debt crisis. The deficit is the difference between what the federal government takes in from taxes and other revenues and what it spends. This adds to the cumulative federal debt.
miller was building on that Prior comments that place the country’s spending problems at the feet of immigrants who are in the US illegally, are not integrated into the American system, or both. Stolen or otherwise misused benefits have left taxpayers “burdened” with hundreds of billions of dollars, or even trillions, as he said in March, Miller said Tuesday.
“The draining of money from American taxpayers to people who don’t belong here is the primary cause of the national debt,” miller said With the President on March 16.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Miller’s comments.
National debt standing At $31.4 trillion. Presidents and members of Congress of both parties have committed to unbalanced spending for decades, since President Bill Clinton briefly managed to balance the budget in the 1990s. But recent years have seen a sharp rise in debt-financed spending. Trump cut taxes in his first term, only to launch a Covid spending frenzy that culminated in a massive stimulus package under President Joe Biden. That spending prevented a recession at the cost of warming the economy, contributing to the inflation that still plagues Americans.
Treasury Secretary Scott Besant said before being elected To do that, he wanted Trump to bring the deficit to less than 4% of GDP by the end of his term. There is still time, but the trajectory is not looking good. The deficit is projected to reach 5.8% of GDP in the 2025 fiscal year, which ended in September. According to CBOOr about $1.8 trillion.
Are illegal immigrants guilty? If so, government investigators have not seen it. Federal inspectors general reported $186 billion in improper payments last year, or about 10% of the deficit, according to the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office. Those figures don’t capture all fraud, but they do capture some payments that were inflated but not completely misdirected.
Democrats and Republicans have debated for years whether it is possible to reduce the deficit simply by reducing waste, fraud or abuse.
Miller’s argument is difficult to refute. It’s possible that fraudsters may be stealing large sums of money right under the noses of federal bureaucrats. it happens. GAO finds improper payment data could add up to $3 trillion since 2003, Or less than two years of losses at the current rate.
But Americans will suffer if fear of suspected fraud is used to cut immigration. That’s because immigrants don’t deplete the federal budget, they buffer it, researcher Found at the Libertarian Cato Institute. Immigrants added $14.5 trillion to fiscal income over 30 years. They receive less from Social Security and Medicare than other Americans, because they have less work history in the US and because some are ineligible as undocumented immigrants. Among other explanations, they also receive less public schooling because they arrive later in life.
Why is the deficit increasing? Americans overall are aging, and therefore providing for retirement and health care is more expensive. Meanwhile the debt has increased, contributing to interest payments that now exceed the military’s annual cost.
There is no magic number at which debt becomes too much. And unlike a business or household, the government’s debt is dominated by the dollars it prints, so it can’t default. States must balance their budgets, but there is no such requirement for the federal government.
Not debt free. The US government is adding so much of it every year that it is not clear that there will always be buyers for it through government bonds at a price Americans will be willing to pay.
The concerns of bond managers have real implications for Americans. yield on 10 year treasure The note determines how much consumers pay for mortgages, auto loans, credit cards and other loans. The day after Trump won the 2024 election, it was 4.3%. Besant has said that she sees 10 years as a barometer of the administration’s success.
But even after 10 years, it is above the same place where Trump won. By Wednesday afternoon it had fallen nearly 20 basis points, or hundredths of a percent, to below 4.5% as traders digested the prospect that the Iran war would soon end, easing their inflation worries. But even under those yields there is a floor, set by the US government’s plan to issue endless new amounts of debt.
None of this would be such a problem if there was any possibility of fixing the bigger picture. But the second Trump administration has repeatedly used the deficit as a weapon to attack its perceived opponents, making any compromise increasingly unlikely. Elon Musk’s failed government efficiency department Cut down on little waste and alienate potential allies. Who were excited by the prospect of a serious reform effort.
Democrats will have little incentive to campaign for tough fiscal choices in the midterms and beyond when Republicans have had so much political success avoiding them. Ironically, the Democrats’ loudest voice for fiscal prudence recently has been democratic socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who recently proudly announced progress Balancing the New York City Budget.
But it’s easier said than done where state law requires a balanced budget. Vice President Kamala Harris’ brief campaign in 2024 did not have a plan for restrained spending and even offered some tax increases. The Democrats’ 2028 candidates will face intense pressure to be far more aggressive in terms of government spending and even less fiscally conservative.
The deficit cannot be fixed by cutting payments to immigrants. And it won’t get better until the debt crisis reaches a level that makes taking the medicine less painful than the disease. Whether Stephen Miller knows it or not, his comments on Tuesday make it a little more likely.