Obama to cut deficit in half... After quadrupling it.

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