The liberal Washington Post fact-checker previously awarded Biden a ‘bottomless Pinocchio’ for the claim.
President Biden, once again, is facing criticism for making a claim about the federal budget deficit that has been deemed “highly misleading.” During a speech in West Columbia, South Carolina on Thursday, where he highlighted the achievements of his administration’s economic policies, Biden asserted that he had reduced the federal government’s budget deficit by $1.7 trillion since assuming office in January 2021.
“Incidentally, I’d like to mention the deficit. I have managed to reduce the deficit by $1.7 trillion in two years. This is an unprecedented accomplishment – no one has ever achieved such a significant reduction in debt,” Biden declared to the audience. gathered at Flex LTD, a manufacturing company.
Biden has consistently repeated the same assertion on multiple occasions, leading to scrutiny and earning him a “Bottomless Pinocchio” rating from Glenn Kessler, The Washington Post’s chief fact-checker known for his liberal perspective.
In April, Kessler deemed the claim “highly misleading” and had previously given Biden “three Pinocchios” when he made a similar statement in September of the previous year.
Kessler expressed frustration with Biden’s repetition, stating in April, “He continues to make this claim repeatedly. We have counted at least 30 instances since June where he has taken credit for reducing the budget deficit by $1.7 trillion.”
House Republicans launch an investigation into cocaine found in White House
According to Kessler’s assessment, the implementation of additional pandemic relief funds by Biden, along with other new policies, resulted in a “less significant decrease in the deficit” compared to the initial projections for 2021 and 2022.
“In total, during those two years, Biden increased the national debt by approximately $850 billion more than the original estimates,” Kessler stated.
“To put it differently, once again the data indicates that the deficit situation has worsened under Biden,” he further emphasized.
In May, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), a nonpartisan entity, disclosed that the federal government, under President Biden, had incurred a federal deficit of nearly $1 trillion during the “first seven months of fiscal year 2023.” The CBO report revealed that within that timeframe alone, the federal government had accumulated a total of $928,000,000,000 in deficit spending.