Beating Buffett

Paul, it is certainly true that Obama was unable to keep his promise to cut Federal deficits in half. However, your chart is disingenuous, because it deals with the total debt, not the deficit. Even if Obama had cut the deficit in half, or even more, it would still show an upward drift, because ANY deficit would add to the national debt. The only way to send that line down would be to run a surplus, an unlikely event anytime soon, no matter who is in power.

So what’s the actual situation with the deficit? The deficit went up sharply in Obama’s first year (2009), largely because of falling tax revenues due to the recession he inherited, plus the ’stimulus’, which was mostly tax cuts. In 2010 the deficit went down about 15%, and in 2011 it was essentially then same as 2010. As the economy recovers, this will naturally fall, no matter who is in power. More importantly, the deficit as a percentage of GDP - the only deficit that really matters - is already falling sharply, and will fall even faster in a recovery. Whoever is the next President no doubt claim credit for this, even though they had little to do with it.