Biden: "misleading" claim that he reduced the U.S. budget deficit by $1.7 trillion: "Pinocchios"

Social Media · July 7, 2023

A liberal fact-checker for the Washington Post gave Biden the nickname "Bottomless Pinocchio" for his claim.

Once more, President Biden is going to make a claim about the federal budget deficit that has been described as "highly misleading."

Biden claimed that he had reduced the federal government's budget deficit by $1.7 trillion since taking office in January 2021 during a speech on Thursday in West Columbia, South Carolina, praising the success of his administration's economic policies.

"And by the way, I'd like to mention the deficit in parentheses. In two years, I reduced the deficit by $1.7 trillion. "Cutting the debt $1.7 trillion has never been done before," Biden told the gathering at Flex LTD, a manufacturing company.

The same assertion has been made by Biden numerous times, and in April, Glenn Kessler, the liberal chief fact-checker for The Washington Post, gave it the rating of "Bottomless Pinocchio."

Kessler gave Biden "three Pinocchios" when he made a different version of the claim in September of last year, and he called the claim "highly misleading."

Kessler wrote in April, "He keeps saying it over and over again." According to our count, he has claimed credit for reducing the budget deficit by $1.7 trillion at least 30 times since June."

Kessler wrote that the extra pandemic help reserves established by Biden, as well as other new strategies, caused a "more humble decrease in the shortage" than was anticipated for 2021 and 2022.

"By and large, in those two years Biden expanded the public obligation about $850 billion a bigger number of than initially anticipated," he said.

He continued, "In other words, the data again shows the deficit picture has worsened under Biden."