Trending
Trump has made billions since being reelected in November 2024. The underlying transactions are real; what remains disputed is whether they constitute corruption, bribery or merely staggering conflicts of interest. But taking the long view, all of that doesn’t count for much compared to what he’s stealing from future generations of Americans.
Yes, Trump reported more than $1.4 billion in income from family cryptocurrency ventures in 2025, even while setting government crypto policy. Included in that bonanza was his $TRUMP meme-coin business: Reuters estimates the project generated more than $672 million in the first half of 2025 alone, with the Trump Organization entitled to roughly half the proceeds. Meanwhile, someone who bought $TRUMP near its roughly $74 peak has lost about 97% of that investment. And then there are ethical and constitutional questions surrounding the gift of a Qatari plane, a golf project in Vietnam, the pardon of a cryptofinance mogul and much more.
Even as the deficit zooms, Trump digs the hole deeper. In fiscal year 2000, the last full fiscal year of Bill Clinton’s presidency, the federal government ran a surplus of 2.4% of GDP. Those days ended with the tax cuts and the Iraq war undertaken by his successor George W. Bush. Now for fiscal year 2026, which ends Sept. 30, the deficit will be over 6% of GDP, the largest percentage since World War II, outside of the Great Recession and the COVID-19 pandemic.
Trump refuses to raise taxes to cover the widening gap. According to the Congressional Budget Office, last year’s so-called “Great Big Beautiful Bill” will add roughly $4.2 trillion to federal deficits over the decade from 2025 to 2034. Almost half the tax cuts it provided go to the top 10% of taxpayers. In 1955 during the Eisenhower administration, the top marginal individual tax rate was 91%. Today, it’s 37%. In 1955 the economy grew over three times faster after inflation than in 2025.
Of course, debt is not always a bad thing. It can be an investment in the future. For example, the federal government spent about $7 billion on university education for returning WWII veterans. Estimates on the ROI are as high as 12.5-to-1. In an even more dramatic example, a modest government seed investment of a few hundred million dollars in early computer networking helped lay the foundation for today’s multitrillion-dollar digital economy. Trump, though, is cutting investments in both education and research, even while running up the deficit.
The United Nations calls climate change “the single biggest health threat facing humanity.” So the Trump administration’s response? Doubling down on the very fossil fuels driving it by withdrawing from the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change, opening millions of acres of federal lands to coal mining, and making plans for offshore oil drilling on the West Coast and in the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska. Through August 2026, Trump, with the support of congressional Republicans, has rolled back hundreds of billions of dollars in Biden-era clean energy investments, including EV, solar, home efficiency, wind, hydrogen, manufacturing and climate finance programs, while canceling $17.8 billion in federal grants with another $33.6 billion under review.
Trump simply isn’t concerned with investing in the future. The “Great Big Beautiful Bill” slashes health coverage and food assistance for tens of millions of children. We are not investing adequately in the education of future generations, nor their health or nutrition. We are stealing their inheritance.
Yes, there are already more deadly floods, heat waves, air pollution and fierce storms, but most of their effects will only hit in the second half of this century, presumably well after the current president has left the scene. By the end of this century, the American children of today and their children may have to deal with over 100,000 deaths each year in a high-warming scenario made far more likely by Trump’s policies.
Trump is like a teenager with his first credit card. He finds debt exhilarating. “I am the king of debt,” he’s said. “I do love debt. I love debt. I love playing with it.” And he, for one, is expecting to be bailed out as he has been so many times in his real estate dealings. “I would borrow, knowing that if the economy crashed, you could make a deal.”
But in Trump’s case, there’s no understanding parent to cover the debt. In a topsy-turvy twist, it won’t be up to today’s parents to cover the debts Trump runs up. It will fall to their children and their children’s children. Their need to do so will crowd out private-sector investments and slow the economy.
In a famous test conducted at Stanford over 50 years ago, young children were offered one marshmallow immediately or two if they could wait for a short period. It has come to stand for the benefits of delayed gratification and investing in the future. If Trump had been given the test as a 4-year-old, he would not have waited. He would have grabbed the whole bag, stuffed its contents down his throat, and sent the bill to his younger brother Robert.
A renaissance man, Keith Raffel has served as the senior counsel to the Senate Intelligence Committee, started a successful internet software company, and had six books published including five novels and a collection of his columns. He currently spends the academic year as a resident scholar at Harvard. You can learn more about him at keithraffel.com. To read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators website at creators.com.
COPYRIGHT 2026 KEITH RAFFEL DIST. BY CREATORS