Since, like most Liberals, you appear to have no idea of the difference between the debt and the deficit, I have provided the following explanation:
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2014/feb/27/debt-vs-deficit-whats-difference/This chart from the Congressional Budget Office shows federal debt levels projected to rise through 2038.
This chart from the Congressional Budget Office shows federal debt levels projected to rise through 2038.
What word starts with "d" and ends with "t" and has to do with the federal budget?
Youd be right if you said "debt." Youd also be right if you said "deficit." But while the two words sound the same, they describe very different concepts. One is getting bigger, while the other is getting smaller. The politicians and talking heads dont make things easier by confusing the two.
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Its a mistake were seeing more often, especially from Democrats who want to defend President Barack Obamas fiscal policies.
The latest offender: the Senates second-ranking Democrat, Dick Durbin of Illinois. In an interview on Fox News Sunday last week, Durbin said the Obama administration was going to "reduce the overall debt of the United States by $3 trillion over the next 10 years."
Sorry, but his talk about the overall debt was ridiculously wrong. Instead of going down $3 trillion, the best estimate of the debt over the next 10 years is that it will rise by $8.6 trillion.
That's a difference of ... $11.6 trillion. That's real money to anyone. PolitiFact rated his statement Pants on Fire!
Democrats do have a point when they say that the federal deficit is going down. The deficit is a measure of a single years shortfall, the difference between what the government takes in and what it spends. And in recent years, the deficit has been declining, thanks to the end of the recession and lower government spending.
The deficit hit a mind-boggling $1.41 trillion in 2009 during the teeth of the recession, due to a fall off in tax revenues and an economic stimulus aimed at jump-starting the economy. It gradually declined somewhat, but still stayed north of $1 trillion in 2010, 2011 and 2012. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said those years marked the largest budget deficits relative to the size of the economy since 1946.
But with the end of the Great Recession, deficits are getting smaller. The deficit for 2013 is expected to finally drop below the $1 trillion mark, to $973 billion. The Obama administration predicts further declines through 2018, when they project the deficit will be $475 billion.
But the deficits arent going away. If they did go away, then there would be whats called a budget surplus. The United States hasnt seen budget surpluses since the days of President Bill Clinton.
So years of deficits, even deficits that are growing smaller, still means the overall debt is getting bigger.
Got it?
The fiscal future
Sometimes, though, you hear people on TV talk about the debt going down, and thats wrong. When PolitiFact has fact-checked the claim -- usually from Obama supporters -- the explanation is typically that they said "debt" when they meant "deficit."
Back in November, for example, Al Sharpton said on his MSNBC show PoliticsNation that the national debt "has been reduced every year for the last five years." He meant deficits. PunditFact, the PolitiFact project that rates the talking heads, rated his statement False.
And even if some are feeling cheerful about declining deficits, the Congressional Budget Office warns that shrinking deficits wont last if the nation keeps to its current spending and taxing policies. Deficits will begin to increase in years to come, and continue increasing for the next 25 years, through 2038.
You will see, on the chart provided by the Congressional Budget Office, the sharp increase in the debt during Obama's tenure.