WASHINGTON (Yaakov M / VINnews) — Twitter has fact-checked another misleading White House claim. Readers added “context” to the tweet, which used a bogus talking point that has often been repeated by President Biden himself.
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The tweet said “the Biden-Harris Administration lowered the deficit with the single largest one-year reduction in American history.”
Though technically accurate, it failed to mention that spending in 2020 and 2021 was dramatically higher than any previous year, and even Biden’s addiction to spending could not prevent a heavy deficit reduction.
The Biden-Harris Administration lowered the deficit with the single largest one-year reduction in American history.
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) November 22, 2022
Spending hit record levels in 2020 due to Covid, including PPP, stimulus checks, enhanced unemployment to compensate for lockdowns, and other exorbitant spending directly tied to the pandemic.
If Biden had done nothing, the deficit would have been reduced by record margins, simply by stopping the Covid spending.
However Biden did not do nothing. He added billions in new spending, yet still managed to reduce the deficit, because spending was so astronomical in the first place.
The “reader-added context” said “COVID-driven deficits in both FY20 & 21 were roughly double the previous record (09), making the drop to FY22 sizeable. But the FY22 deficit is still the 4th largest in history and is 41% larger than FY19.”
Even CNN fact-checker Daniel Dale has mocked Biden’s claim, saying, “One advocate of deficit reduction, Marc Goldwein of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, told me that this claim is almost bizarro world, a reversal of reality.”
In 2020 under Trump, lawmakers added $3.4 trillion of borrowing due to Covid. President Biden then added a staggering $4.8 trillion to deficits, which began in 2021 and will continue until 2031.
The specific policies that have increased deficits include:
The American Rescue Plan ($1.85 trillion), Infrastructure Law ($370 billion), Food Stamps Increase ($185 billion), Inflation-Reduction Act, Ukraine funding ($55 billion), Student Debt Relief and Cancellation ($750 billion) , and interest payments ($700 billion).
In November, the White House deleted a false tweet taking credit for increased social security checks, which was actually due to Biden’s incompetence leading to massive inflation.
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When something is technically accurate, it is accurate.