Here’s how the deficit performed under Republican and Democratic presidents, from Reagan to Trump
This article was updated Aug. 2 to include a graph with the annual federal deficit in constant dollars. A viral post portrays Democrats, not Republicans, as the party of fiscal responsibility, with numbers about the deficit under recent presidents to make the case.
Alex Cole, a political news editor at the website Newsitics, published the tweet July 23. Within a few hours, several Facebook users posted screenshots of the tweet, which claims that Republican presidents have been more responsible for contributing to the deficit over the past four decades.
Those posts racked up several hundred likes and shares. We also found a screenshot on Reddit, where it has been upvoted more than 53,000 times.
“Morons: ‘Democrats cause deficits,’” the original tweet reads.
Screenshots of the tweet on Facebook were flagged as part of the company’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.)
At PolitiFact, we’ve reported extensively on how Republicans and Democrats often try to pin the federal deficit on each other — muddying the facts in the process. So we wanted to see if this Facebook post is true.
We reached out to Newsitics, the media outlet that Cole founded and works for, to see what evidence he used to compose the tweet and didn’t hear back. Our review shows the numbers basically check out, but they don’t tell the full story.
What even is the deficit?
Some people confuse the federal deficit with the debt — but they’re two separate concepts.
The Department of the Treasury explains it like this: The deficit is the difference between the money that the government makes and the money it spends. If the government spends more than it collects in revenues, then it’s running a deficit.
The federal debt is the running total of the accumulated deficits.
Following the money
Now let’s take a closer look at each president’s impact on the federal deficit.
To check the numbers in Cole’s tweet, we went to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, which has an interactive database for these kinds of figures. Here’s what we found for each claim:
“(President Ronald) Reagan took the deficit from 70 billion to 175 billion.” This is more or less accurate. The federal deficit went from about $78.9 billion at the beginning of Reagan’s presidency to $152.6 billion at the end of it. At points between 1983 and 1986, the deficit was actually more than $175 billion.
“(George H.W.) Bush 41 took it to 300 billion.” Close, but not exactly. The number was around $255 billion at the end of Bush’s term. The deficit spiked at around $290.3 billion the year before he left office.
“(Bill) Clinton got it to zero.” This is true. During his presidency, Clinton managed to zero out the deficit and end his term with a $128.2 billion surplus.
“(George W.) Bush 43 took it from 0 to 1.2 trillion.” This is in the ballpark. Ignoring the fact that he actually started his presidency with a surplus, Bush left office in 2009 with a federal deficit of roughly $1.41 trillion.
“(Barack) Obama halved it to 600 billion.” This is essentially accurate. Obama left the presidency with a deficit of approximately $584.6 billion, which is more than halving $1.41 trillion. The deficit was even lower in 2015 at around $441.9 billion.
We had to look for more recent data to back up Cole’s allegation that “Trump’s got it back to a trillion.”
Featured Fact-check
A Treasury Department statement from June put the federal deficit at about $747.1 billion so far this fiscal year. But the agency also reported that Washington is on track to post a $1.1 trillion deficit by the end of September, which backs up Cole’s claim.
After we published this story, some readers asked us to look at the annual deficit in terms of constant dollars, which adjust for inflation. Data since 1940 show that the deficit was highest in 2009, 2010 and 2011 — the height of the Great Recession and the aftermath of the 2009 stimulus package.
Presidential power
How much power do presidents have to change the deficit anyway?
The president does affect the budget by negotiating and signing appropriations bills. But there’s a lot more to it.
First, the country’s economic situation has a big impact on the federal deficit. The Great Recession affected the deficit near the end of George W. Bush’s administration and the beginning of Obama’s, said Stephen Ellis, executive vice president of the nonprofit Taxpayers for Common Sense. There was more spending on safety net programs like food stamps and Medicaid and less income from taxes.
Second, new presidents take office in January and, for the most part, inherit the budget from the previous administration for the remainder of the fiscal year — not to mention legislation passed in years prior. “Even the ‘dream budget’ that the president proposes is tied by all sorts of historical obligations and economic conditions,” Tara Sinclair, an associate professor of economics and international affairs at George Washington University, told PolitiFact.
None of that is to say that the president doesn’t have any effect on the deficit, Ellis said. He used Reagan’s tax cuts and Obama’s stimulus package as examples of how the president can affect deficit spending.
The combination of spending hikes and tax cuts amplifies deficits. Trump oversaw both. While the rise in spending was bi-partisan, the tax cuts were a Republican effort that Trump championed. In the time since Trump signed his landmark Tax Cuts and Jobs Act in December 2017, the deficit has increased by more than $100 billion. A Congressional Budget Office report from April 2018 found that the law could add almost $1.9 trillion to the deficit over 10 years.
But Cole’s tweet still lacks some nuance.
Our ruling
A viral tweet made several claims about how the deficit has grown under Republican presidents and shrunk under Democrats.
On the whole, the numbers presented for each president are basically accurate. However, it’s worth clarifying that presidents alone are not responsible for the rise and fall of the federal deficit.
The tweet is accurate but needs additional information. We rate it Mostly True.
“Reagan took the deficit from $70 billion to $175 billion. Bush 41 took it to $300 billion. Clinton got it to zero. Bush 43 took it from zero to $1.2 trillion. Obama halved it to $600 billion. Trump’s got it back to a trillion.”
Scottie's Playtime 
This is a marvelous extension of what I’ve been seeing happen for the last (good lord) nearly 80 years: the Republicans see the big (expensive) picture and climb aboard, the Democrats spend their term in office repairing the leaks and overflows, get blamed for whatever suits everyone else, and the Republicans come back to make messes again. From Eisenhower on, it seems that the Repubs feel they can spend all that money of things that look good, and aren’t necessarily necessary, but oh so expensive. And the Dems vote them out of office, and spend their entire time in office paying the bills. And get blamed.
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Exactly. Then once the mess is cleaned up, or at least is presentable, stupid people want a tax cut, and elect Republicans again. sigh
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There, there. It does seem inevitable. I can only imagine the chaos if a third party were involved.
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Ha! 🙂 I want more parties and fusion voting, but I’d really like no parties but instant runoff voting. It’s easier, and more people will vote because they get to vote for someone. Everyone gets at least a little of what they want.
But that is naught but a dream, I’m sure! 😀
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Hi Ali. I like rank choice voting. I also would like more parties but that might fracture the public even more. But it also might make the legislature more responsive to the public if they have to have coalition governments. I think the Democratic Party lost its way when people like Nancy Pelosi took the party to the right as corporate democrats because they wanted that corporate money that the republicans were vacuuming up. The party walked away from unions, the needs of the people, and supporting the many programs that helped the people in their daily lives. They stopped fighting for the idea that life was about more than working and building up money. In my view they became republican lite as the Overton window moved ever more right since the 1970s. How I miss Ed Kennedy the lion of the senate. Hugs
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The “Republican” party has at least three groups as a coalition. There’s the classic Republican (many gave up and left the party – they oughta give up on keeping the name and just start the Classic Cola party, whatever name they choose for it). There’s MAGA, which is also a cult. There’s neo-Nazis. That’s three. There’s also Q, the right wing equivalent of the way the Green party is swinging.
They have a coalition as do the Democrats, so they all use the same party name in order to manufacture majorities rather than pluralities.
So how do we get both sides to split along internal party lines?
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Hi MDavis. You say that the neo-Nazi are the third group. But considering they champion all the maga republicans like tRump. DeathSantis, and openly march in favor of republican candidates in red states don’t you think they should be labeled in with maga? Hugs
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No one asked me, but I think they should all be labelled in with Republicans. Because that party has embraced them all and their support, so the Republicans are the party of nazis. maga is nazi, Q is nazi, nazis are nazis. Possibly these days not all Republicans are nazis, but all nazis are Republicans. They should be labelled Republicans.
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Hi Ali. Please wonderful lady never wait to be asked to share your opinion. It is valued in all we talk about. Also I agree with you, no that it matters. The left should hang all that those hateful Nazi militia groups do to support republicans on the necks of every republican. It always irritated me that DeathSantis wouldn’t say a bad word about the Nazis supporting and marching for him claiming he did not ask them to support him. But he never denied their support of him. The right has gotten really good at denying they promote hate while winking at the haters doing things on their behalf. Hugs
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Exactly. I can remember when Republicans didn’t worry about insulting their base when they talked actual truth about nazis. No longer.
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I don’t think they ever will.
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Nope, but thanks for letting me have my little fantasy for a day.
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It takes a lot of time, dedication, money, elbow grease, and people to build a new party. Contrary to how they’re presented by non-Dems, the Dem party isn’t rolling in dough, by any stretch. The Republican party used to have far more money, but Trump fixed that for them by taking it for his legal expenses. I think they’re still better funded than the Dem party, but that could be my prejudice.
Back to starting new parties, though, people will have to show up and keep showing up, or it will come to nothing. Sort of like watching the Green party keep going nowhere, because no one’s truly interested in making it a viable party. Easier to stick with the established ones.
Which is why ranked choice voting would be best: no parties at all, simply candidates who have to campaign on their own merits.
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Hi. New parties have to be started from the ground up. The greens are only spoilers because they only show up every presidential election year. To make a sustainable third party people need to run for local office such as school boards, then state offices, and then go for congress. It is a joke these groups that show up every four years to host a third party candidate that can not win, it is simply a way for these groups to campaign fund raise but no one know where the really goes. Remember Jill Stein raising funds for a recount she claimed would change the election … but once she got the money she quietly disappeared. Hugs
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Hi Ali. Do the democrats ever get tired of being the adults in the room? I know I am. I love the fact that Zohran Mamdani won the democratic nomination to be mayor. He ran on helping the people, lowering their costs for them by having free bus service, stabilizing rent controlled apartments, and having city run grocery stores to help keep food costs down. More important he showed how each paid for themselves and would help the people. The massive out cry from the wealthy is crazy, with the right wing media calling him every name in the book and claiming because he is Muslim he will kill all the Jewish people and do terrorism against the city. Often talking about him and 9/11. The leadership of the Democratic Party refuse to publicly endorse him because he is a progressive not a corporate democrat. What will they do instead endorse Cuomo? Hugs
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Hi Judy. Republicans call the democrats tax and spend politicians making them feel guilty for spending money to make life better for the people. The republicans understand that if they cut the revenue and give it to their donors that when democrats come into office there is no money to spend on the public to help them. The democrats have to be the adults and cut things to pay the tab run up by republicans. Then when we do get the tab paid the people are pissed at not getting anything they needed so they vote republicans back in. Then the republicans go on a drunken spree repeating the cycle again. Hugs
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