WASHINGTON — President Biden falsely claimed Tuesday that he had reduced the national debt by $1.7 trillion — when in fact, the debt grew by nearly $3.7 trillion during his first 23 months in office.
Biden made a mistake when he used the terms “deficit” and “debt” interchangeably when he suggested that the annual inflation rate would fall slightly to 7.1 percent in November.
“We’ve done all of this while reducing the federal deficit by $1.7 trillion in two years,” Biden said before adding, inaccurately: “Again, we’ve reduced the federal budget by $1.7 trillion in debt.”
When Biden took office, the national debt was about $27.75 trillion. according to Congressional Research Service. That’s about $31.43 trillion today.
Biden regularly touts that the national deficit is shrinking fact-checkers note Much of that decline is due to the expiration of bipartisan programs to combat the COVID-19 pandemic approved in 2020, not Biden’s own actions.
“No other administration has cut the deficit this far,” Biden said Tuesday.
The federal deficit for fiscal year 2022, which ended Sept. 30, was the fourth largest on record, according to the Treasury Department. 1.38 trillion dollars except when authorities collect as revenue in federal spending.
The US deficit increased from $3.13 trillion in fiscal year 2020 to $2.77 trillion in fiscal year 2021.
Last year, Biden signed a $1.9 trillion stimulus bill that passed without Republican support or revenue cuts. Opponents have used planned revenues to cover other major spending, including last year’s $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure law and this year’s $280 billion bipartisan CHIPS and Science Act, $437 billion in environmental and health care spending, and is questioning the draft law and 270 billion dollars. health care bill.
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