At times last summer, it seemed like the only thing President Joe Biden wanted to talk about was the federal budget deficit.
"We're on track to cut the federal deficit by another $1.5 trillion by the end of this fiscal year. The biggest decline ever in a single year, ever, in American history," Biden claimed during a May 2022 press conference. Later that same month, in a Wall Street Journal op-ed touting his economic program, Biden wrote that the deficit would fall by $1.7 trillion and repeated the "largest reduction in history" claim. That talking point was still getting heavy rotation in September when the president bragged on 60 Minutes about his deficit-cutting powers.
