Schrödinger's Solvency

The debt is $40 trillion and rising, the tariffs are simultaneously legal and dead, and somehow there's still $782 million for the ballroom

Good morning! The United States government is nearly $40 trillion in debt, has borrowed roughly $1.4 trillion in the first nine months of this fiscal year, and is now spending nearly $24 billion a week just servicing what it already owes.

Donald Trump is having an excellent year.

None of this borrowing was prompted by a recession, pandemic or financial collapse. This is what winning looks like when the scoreboard has been replaced by a gold-plated sign reading WINNING.

Trump didn’t create the debt; both parties built it over decades. But CBO estimates last year’s tax and spending law adds $4.7 trillion to deficits between 2026 and 2035, interest included. The administration inherited a structural fiscal problem, poured trillions into it, and announced everyone should admire the resulting fountain.

Instead of addressing that, Washington has found something more satisfying to do: build Donald Trump a private political, cultural, and architectural empire, financed by people who need things from his government.

The Wall Street Journal has documented at least $781,948,878 in donations and payments to Trump-linked committees, nonprofits and institutions since the 2024 election, almost certainly an undercount, since several of the groups don’t have to disclose donors or spending.

MAGA Inc. alone has raised nearly $393 million, with $382 million still in the bank, for a president who can’t run again. That money isn’t needed to reelect Trump. It’s there to make sure everyone else stays afraid of him. Some of its largest donors have significant interests before the administration: Crypto.com’s parent gave $35 million while seeking favorable cryptocurrency policy; Reynolds American contributed $8 million, including $5 million shortly before restrictions on certain vaping products were lifted; and OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman and his wife supplied $25 million as the administration pursued an industry-friendly approach to artificial intelligence.

The inaugural committee brought in another $241 million, more than it needed, with the excess earmarked for Trump’s presidential library. Eric Trump runs that foundation. He previously served on the board of the original Trump Foundation, which New York forced to dissolve after finding that its charitable assets had been misused for Trump’s personal, business and political interests. The attorney general sought to bar Eric and his siblings from serving on New York nonprofit boards for a year; the final settlement instead required them to undergo mandatory training in nonprofit governance. He is now back in charge of a family charity receiving tens of millions from corporations settling lawsuits with his father. Meta, Paramount and ABC directed a combined $53 million to the foundation rather than to the Treasury or a neutral third party.

Similar money flows through the Trust for the National Mall, which is funding Trump’s $400 million White House ballroom with donations from companies including Palantir, Coinbase and Lockheed Martin; ballroom donors have recently received more than $50 billion in federal contracts. Freedom 250 is planning America’s 250th anniversary with corporate sponsors and more than a third of Congress’s $150 million appropriation. At the Kennedy Center, Trump purged the board, installed himself as chairman and attracted new corporate donors. Meanwhile, the National Garden of American Heroes Foundation is seeking to redevelop prime D.C. waterfront property without disclosing its financial backers.

Each fund has a different name, mission and disclosure regime. Taken together, the funds create a parallel financial structure around the presidency, one that converts corporate money into political control, personal legacy and privileged access while the actual government asks taxpayers and future generations to cover its mounting obligations.

The public government borrows money. The private presidency raises it. The public government asks future generations to pay the bill. The private presidency asks today’s corporations if they’d like a table near the president.

The tariff saga is the same principle in miniature. In February, the Supreme Court ruled that IEEPA did not authorize Trump’s global tariffs; he imposed a replacement 10 percent surcharge under Section 122 that same day. That authority expires by law on July 24 and Trump can’t extend it unilaterally, so USTR spent the spring developing proposed Section 301 duties on 60 economies, positioning them as the likely successor. It’s Schrödinger’s tariff: unlawful enough to lose in court, temporary enough to expire next week, valid enough to stay on your invoice in the meantime. When one statute fails, the administration doesn’t ask Congress for durable authority. It goes searching for the next available one.

None of this reflects a government that lacks capacity. It drafted a global tariff replacement within hours of a Supreme Court loss. That’s a fast, well-lawyered government, when the right people are asking.

Which brings us to climate. Today the National Academies releases its first major update in a decade on attributing specific disasters to human-caused warming, science that could help cities and states suing fossil-fuel companies move from “climate change made this worse” to “climate change made this much worse.” House Science Committee leaders sent NASEM a letter alleging bias among committee members. Ted Cruz and his colleagues introduced the Stop Climate Shakedowns Act, which would block climate-damage claims against fossil-energy businesses in both state and federal courts and pre-empt state laws imposing climate liability.

It’s a proposal to ensure that science can’t be used to help victims recover damages for harm caused by industrial negligence.

The debt doesn’t get a bill this fast. Neither does the disaster-cost spiral working through insurance markets right now. Serious problems get ignored until solving them would cost the powerful something, then passivity becomes an emergency.

Public government borrows while the private presidency raises. Costs flow outward to taxpayers, importers, and homeowners; money flows inward to a super PAC, a library, a ballroom and a sculpture garden.

The taxpayer ledger shows debt, deficits and interest. The patronage ledger shows at least $782 million gathered around a president who can’t run again and has no plans to loosen his grip.

Only one of those ledgers is flourishing.