(Headline USA) President Joe Biden falsely claimed this week that he cut the national debt by $1.7 trillion — even though he’s added more than $3 trillion to it since taking office.
Biden seems to have confused the national debt and the federal deficit, saying during remarks at the White House this week that his administration has dipped the annual inflation rate to 7.1% from its peak of 9% late last year.
“We’ve done all of this while lowering the federal deficit in the two years we’ve been in office $1.7 trillion,” Biden said, “Let me say that again — $1.7 trillion we’ve lowered the federal debt.”
According to the Congressional Budget Office, Biden has added $3.7 trillion to the national debt. It was $27.75 when Biden took office in 2019, and is now $31.43 trillion.
Biden’s claim that he has reduced the national deficit is also false. Even leftist fact checkers have pointed out that declines in the deficit were due to the expiration of massive COVID-19 relief programs — not because of any one Biden policy.
“The deficit has been smaller under the Biden administration than it was at the end of President Donald Trump’s tenure. But the deficit has been bigger under the Biden administration than the nonpartisan federal Congressional Budget Office had projected it would be if the Biden-era federal government stuck with the laws that were in effect when Trump left office in early 2021,” CNN fact-checker Daniel Dale wrote.
Moreover, his legislative effort to reduce the deficit, the Inflation Reduction Act, was completely off-set by his massive student loan debt bailout.
Biden’s proposed debt cancellation, which is now under review by the Supreme Court, would cost $400 billion over the next decade, according to the CBO, which said it was “highly uncertain” about the estimate. Meanwhile, a study from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business said the cost could easily exceed $500 billion.
