Trump ran up the national debt by about twice as much as Biden, according to a new analysis of their fiscal track records.

Why it matters: The winner of November's election faces a gloomy fiscal outlook, with rapidly rising debt levels at a time when interest rates are already high and demographic pressure on retirement programs is rising.

• Both candidates bear a share of the responsibility, as each added trillions to that tally while in office.
• But Trump's contribution was significantly higher, according to the fiscal watchdogs at the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, thanks to both tax cuts and spending deals struck in his four years in the White House.

By the numbers: Trump added $8.4 trillion in borrowing over a 10-year window, the CRFB finds in a report out this morning.

• Biden's figure clocks in at $4.3 trillion with seven months remaining in his term.
• If you exclude COVID relief spending from the tally, the numbers are $4.8 trillion for Trump and $2.2 trillion for Biden.

State of play: For Trump, the biggest non-COVID drivers of higher public debt were his signature tax cuts enacted in 2017 (causing $1.9 trillion in additional borrowing) and bipartisan spending packages (which added $2.1 trillion).

• For Biden, major non-COVID factors include 2022 and 2023 spending bills ($1.4 trillion), student debt relief ($620 billion) and legislation to support health care for veterans ($520 billion).
• Biden deficits have also swelled, according to the CRFB's analysis, due to executive actions that changed the way food stamp benefits are calculated, expanded Medicaid benefits, and other changes that total $548 billion.

Between the lines: Deficit politics may return to the forefront of U.S. policy debates next year.

• Much of Trump's tax law is set to expire at the end of 2025, and the Congressional Budget Office has estimated that fully extending it would increase deficits by $4.6 trillion over the next decade.
• High interest rates make the taxpayer burden of both existing and new debt higher than it was during the era of near-zero interest rates.
• And the Social Security trust fund is rapidly hurtling toward depletion in 2033, which would trigger huge cuts in the retirement benefits absent Congressional action.

What they're saying: "The next president will face huge fiscal challenges," CRFB president Maya MacGuineas tells Axios.

• "Yet both candidates have track records of approving trillions in new borrowing even setting aside the justified borrowing for COVID, and neither has proposed a comprehensive and credible plan to get the debt under control," she said.
• "No president is fully responsible for the fiscal challenges that come along, but they need to use the bully pulpit to set the stage for making some hard choices," MacGuineas said.

If economists are right, there will be more good news on inflation come Friday morning.

What to watch: The Personal Consumption Expenditures Index, the Fed's preferred inflation gauge, is expected to be flat for the month of May.

• The core reading that excludes energy and food costs should be just as benign, rising 0.1%, economists estimate.
• That would bring both the PCE index and the core index to 2.6% in the 12 months through May — both slightly below that in April.

Why it matters: If the data comes in as economists expect, it would be the latest to confirm inflation's cooling trend after fears that progress was stalling.

The big picture: A top Fed official recently laid out reasons to be optimistic that the cooling trajectory might continue.

• In a speech last week, Fed governor Adriana Kugler said higher instances of consumers pushing back against prices might spur slower price increases and even declining prices for goods and services.
• "What I have heard in my own conversations with business contacts is that consumers are 'trading down' to lower-cost products and that firms are responding with more discounting," Kugler said

The intrigue: Kugler added that another key reason for optimism is productivity, which would allow the economy to keep humming without sparking inflation.

• Widespread adoption of AI might help that be the case: "AI technology has the potential to make workers and firms more productive — effectively boosting aggregate supply," Kugler said.
• Kugler said new technologies can take a long time to make a dent in aggregate productivity. But she suspects AI will "diffuse more quickly, in part because many of the complementary assets needed for the initial spread of AI — such as computers, networks, and the like — are already in place."