I’ll wait a few days; by then, the fact-checkers will have had a chance to take a look at the fine print.
“I’ll wait a few days; by then, the fact-checkers will have had a chance to take a look at the fine print.”
Assuming these numbers are true (which is always a big question with all the revisions that end up happening), there is really no fine print to look at here.
Federal deficits averaged around $150 billion to $200 billion during the Bush years, even at the height of the two wars we were fighting. I believe Bush’s highest deficit (and the highest on record up until that time) was 2008 at around $350 billion, and that was with the bailouts.
Obama came in and right off the bat went about the business of bankrupting the country. His first four years, he ran deficits exceeding $1 trillion annually, MORE THAN TRIPLE what any other president had ever run. Now we are supposed to give him credit for reducing those stratospheric numbers down to a little over half a trillion?
Actually, the main reason the deficit is coming down is the sequester that was vehemently opposed by Obama but the GOP allowed to take effect last year. Without those spending restraints (as small as they are), we would still probably be exceeding $1 trillion.