President Joe Biden is once again touting the federal government’s efforts to reduce the deficit. While it is true that the deficit is decreasing, the left fails to paint the whole picture and explain what this really means.
A common misunderstanding by voters is conflating the nation’s “debt” with the “deficit.” These terms refer to two different things: a nation’s debt is the amount of money that a country owes in total, while the deficit is the amount of debt a country incurs in one year. Put simply, the deficit is how much money the government overspends in one year.
By bragging about the fact that the government is reducing the deficit, politicians fail to acknowledge that the problem of overspending is still occurring.
Let me put it this way: if I were spending beyond my means and buying things I could not afford, I would be considered financially irresponsible because I am putting myself deeper into debt. Now, if I decided to overspend less one year than I had the year prior, I significantly cut my deficit but the amount of debt I racked up did not change at all. In fact, the debt is still increasing. Has the irresponsibility of my behavior changed? Not in the slightest. Because of this, it would not make sense for me to characterize my ability to overspend slightly less as a “major win.”
The United States’ debt is currently shy of $32,000,000,000,000 (that’s a lot of zeroes). Our nation’s debt has radically increased in the last few years because of the COVID-19 pandemic. During the COVID-19 pandemic, our country ran huge deficits in an effort to keep the U.S. economy afloat. In 2020, the deficit reached the highest our country has seen since WWII.
To some extent, this makes sense; it wouldn’t be surprising if a person used their credit card to cover their costs during a time of a financial crisis. But once that crisis ended, their reliance on their credit card would likely be reduced. The government did the exact same thing, so it’s not at all surprising that our deficit is going down from record highs. Our deficit would have decreased in the last two years regardless of who is at the helm of the nation.
None of this should be applauded because the government should not be spending one dollar more than it takes in. Our national debt is a ticking time bomb that no one wants to address.
So when you hear politicians talking about how they’ve cut the deficit and they should be celebrated for such an achievement, let’s not get too excited. The binge drinker drank slightly less this year. They still have a drinking problem.
