The Associated Press ran a story titled "Obama plans to slash deficit in half." This is technically true. It's also technically misleading.
The Actual Math
Here's a graph from the Wall Street Journal showing annual federal budget deficits over 30 years:
Bush's worst deficit was less than $500 billion.
Obama's first year deficit hit $2 trillion.
Four years later, Obama announced he would reduce the deficit to $533 billion.
How to Spin Anything
Step 1: Quadruple the deficit to $2 trillion.
Step 2: Reduce it to $533 billion.
Step 3: Claim you cut the deficit in half.
This is accurate in the same way that setting your house on fire and then putting out half the fire makes you a responsible homeowner.
It's also like eating 12 donuts and then only eating 6 donuts the next day and calling yourself a fitness influencer. Technically, you did cut your donut consumption in half. The fire department would like a word, though.
$533 billion would still be the largest annual deficit in US history at that time. But the AP framed this as fiscal responsibility.
You could also raise the deficit to $10 trillion and then cut it to $5 trillion and claim you "slashed the deficit in half." The math works. The logic doesn't.
Graph Source: Wall Street Journal
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