The main proposals from the campaigns of Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump would both increase the federal budget deficit – but Trump’s plans would require significantly more borrowing over the next decade.

According to the Penn Wharton Budget Model, a fiscal policy think tank at the University of Pennsylvania (Trump’s alma mater), Trump’s proposals would increase the budget deficit by an estimated $5.8 trillion over the next decade. Most of Trump’s deficit-increasing policies come from proposed changes that would lower Americans’ tax burden. He is calling for a permanent extension of the 2017 tax cuts, which would increase the budget deficit by an estimated $4 trillion over the next decade (unless Trump proposes matching spending cuts). His plan to eliminate taxes on Social Security will add another $1.2 trillion.

Harris, on the other hand, expects budget deficits to rise by an estimated $1.2 trillion over the next decade, primarily due to increases in government benefits.

She supports expanding the child tax credit and other social benefits provided through the tax code, which would increase the deficit by $2.3 trillion over the course of a decade, according to the Penn Wharton analysis. But her plan to raise the corporate tax would offset some of that deficit spending by increasing federal revenues by about $1 trillion.

The biggest difference between the two estimates is the dynamic consequences of Trump and Harris’ tax plans. Trump’s proposed tax cuts would boost economic growth and offset some of the costs of his other proposals. When these consequences are taken into account, Penn Wharton’s estimates show that Trump only $4.1 trillion would increase the deficit over ten years. Harris’ proposed tax increases, of course, have the opposite effect. As a result, she would increase the deficit by about $2 trillion when the economic impact is included.

Penn Wharton’s estimate is missing a major piece of the puzzle: it does not take into account the potential costs and fiscal impacts of Trump’s proposed tariff increases. The group says it cannot model this because it lacks “key implementation details,” such as which products would be subject to the tariffs and what the import tax rates would be. “While new import taxes and tariffs could raise several trillions of dollars in additional revenue over the next decade, they could also result in revenue losses due to potential retaliation by other governments and other economic dynamics,” the Penn Wharton report warns.

You don’t have to be a seasoned economic analyst to see that neither Trump nor Harris seem interested in reducing the federal budget deficit. In fact, Trump borrowed more than $8 trillion during his four years in office, and Harris was involved in the Biden administration’s efforts to borrow another $4.3 trillion over the past four years. There was little talk on the campaign trail about cutting spending or trying to balance the budget (or even just stabilize the debt), even though polls show voters are concerned about the potential consequences of further borrowing.

Some conservatives and libertarians might argue that Trump’s policy of budget increases should be more acceptable because he is aiming for higher economic growth. That might be true if the budget were not already so out of whack, or if Trump made it clear that he would be interested in cutting government spending to offset his planned tax cuts.

Yet for now, both Trump and Harris are effectively promising to maintain the foolish status quo of the past few decades: giving Americans a more expensive government than they pay for and passing the bill on to the next generation.