Hey there! You appear to be confusing the terms “debt” and “deficit”.
The post to which you replied stated:
“Ain’t it funny as soon as Obama leaves, cons blow up the deficit.”
Deficits occur when government spending levels exceed revenue levels. Although you could follow monthly treasury reports, most people use Fiscal Years to round off deficit figures. When Obama took office, the FY2009 deficit was already in excess of one trillion dollars, and in his second term deficits had fallen to under 500 billion dollars, meaning deficits had been cut in half over the course of his presidency.
Debt, on the other hand, is the cumulative total of yearly deficits and surpluses. Over the course of Obama’s time in the white house, the debt increased by around 80%. This figure can be reliably compared to other presidents’s times in office, such as Bush who increased it by more than 100%, or Reagan who increased it by more than 200%.
Keeping this in mind, it would be accurate to characterize Obama’s time in office as one of great deficit reduction, although the debt continued to expand.
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