https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/natio...
And the graph clearly shows we trend towards less spending under Democrats and then Republicans spend more again.
I don't find the partisan arguments interesting. Bush had a lower deficit (each and every year) invading and occupying two different countries than any president has ever achieved since then. That is not to praise Bush, but to emphasize that we're comparing horrible vs terrible and trying to argue over which is which. They're all miserable failures, and not just in regards to spending.
Running wars is a choice, a pandemic hitting not so much.
> The Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) is a $953-billion business loan program established by the United States federal government during the Trump administration in 2020
That's still not twice under George W. Bush, who became President on Jan. 20, 2001, nearly three weeks into calendar year (and nearly four months into federal fiscal year) 2001.
The reason for the quotes is because that's an incomplete picture since various things can affect the debt without being noted in the annual deficit. For instance some programs are considered off-budget, there's various accounting restructuring, and so on. If you simply look at the total debt it has increased every year (again since at least 1970) with the only exception being 1999 to 2000 depending on when you measure it. If you look end of year vs end of year (as opposed to fiscal year), it decreased by a few billion dollars, and that was the only time.
[1] - https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYFSD