Biden’s Deficient Deficit Math

By Veronique de Rugy

Wednesday, October 12, 2022

 

During a speech to the Congressional Black Caucus, President Biden said, “I’m so sick of Republicans saying we’re the ‘big spenders.’ Give me a break. Give me a break.”

 

The CBO has a great chart on its website looking at accumulative monthly deficits for FY 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2022.

Several things are interesting about this. First, notice the insanely high deficit in FY2019 ($984). Considering the economy was growing, there was no emergency, and we were not at war, shame on the Trump administration for being so careless about fiscal discipline.

 

Second, it also shows a slightly less egregious deficit in FY 2022 ($1.3 trillion) compared to FY2020 ($3 trillion) and FY2021 ($2.8 trillion).

 

However, this shouldn’t lead anyone to conclude that the Biden administration is composed of fiscal hawks. For one thing, if the Democrats had their way and passed Build Back Better, many of the programs that have expired and led to a reduction of the deficit from its height would still be on our books.

 

Also, here is a chart made with CBO data that shows what deficits were projected to be in FY 2022, back in FY2019, 2020, and 2021.

As you can see, the actual deficit for FY2022 way outpaces any previous projections of what that deficit was projected to be. The last blue bar (CBO 2022) is from five months ago. From what I can tell, the gap is mostly explained by the student loan forgiveness program. Here is the CBO:

 

The deficit CBO now estimates for 2022 is $341 billion larger than the shortfall estimated in its most recent baseline projections, which were issued in May 2022.  Outlays and receipts alike are now estimated to be greater than CBO anticipated in May—outlays by $401 billion (or 7 percent) and receipts by $60 billion (or 1 percent).

 

The increase in outlays primarily stems from $426 billion in costs estimated and recorded by the Administration in September 2022 to reflect the long-term costs of certain forms of student debt relief, including forgiving portions of federal student loans for many borrowers. (Other federal spending, on net, was less than CBO projected in May.)

 

My takeaway is that Biden is indeed a big spender. No one should let him get away with saying otherwise since we are in dangerous territory with deficits exploding and interest rates rising.

 

My second takeaway is that, as always, projections should be taken with a grain of salt.