Budget deficits since 2000.

Given that President Obama has already quadrupled the deficit with his stimulus package, pledging to halve it by 2013 is hardly ambitious. Assuming he could "halve" it by the end of his first term, we would still have a deficit twice what it was when he took office four years earlier! Not only does President Obama's budget fail to reduce deficits "overnight", his budget actually moves them in the opposite direction. President Obama's budget would:

• Permanently expand the federal government by nearly 3 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) over 2007 pre-recession levels;
• Borrow 42 cents for each dollar spent in 2010;
  
• Leave permanent deficits that top $1 trillion in as late as 2020;
  

President Bush expanded the federal budget by a historic $700 billion through 2008. 
President Obama would add another $1 trillion.


President Bush began a string of expensive financial bailouts. 
President Obama is accelerating that course.


President Bush created a Medicare drug entitlement that will cost an estimated $800 billion in its first decade.
President Obama has proposed a $634 billion down payment on a new government health care fund.


President Bush increased federal education spending 58 percent faster than inflation. 
President Obama would double it.


President Bush became the first President to spend 3 percent of GDP on federal antipoverty programs.
President Obama has already increased this spending by 20 percent.


President Bush tilted the income tax burden more toward upper-income taxpayers. 
President Obama would continue that trend.


President Bush presided over a $2.5 trillion increase in the public debt through 2008.
(Setting aside 2009, for which Presidents Bush and Obama share responsibility for an additional $2.6 trillion in public debt),
President Obama's budget would add $4.9 trillion in public debt from the beginning of 2010 through 2016.