How Barack Obama “Pays Down the Debt”

Contrary to popular belief, politicians are not, as a rule, particularly dishonest people. But there are exceptions. On the current scene, it would be hard to find another politician as dishonest as Barack Obama. Currently, he is running an ad that says he has a plan to “pay down the debt in a balanced way.” He also tries to justify his call for a tax increase on the ground that the increased revenues will reduce the deficit.

But where, exactly, is Obama’s plan to “pay down the debt”? It is a figment of his imagination; or, rather, a convenient lie that he thinks will help him politically. The only plan Obama has authored is a budget so outrageous that no one–not one Republican, not one Democrat, in either the House or the Senate–will vote for it. Today Obama complied belatedly with federal law by submitting his mid-year budget update, which is required to be submitted to Congress every year no later than July 16. So, does Obama’s updated budget finally disclose his “balanced plan to pay down the deficit”? Of course not. Like every other budget Obama has proposed, it would leave America deeper in the hole than ever. Senator Jeff Sessions said today:

President Obama is currently running a campaign ad saying he has a plan to ‘pay down the debt in a balanced way.’ He has made this claim in public remarks as well. But his updated budget—submitted two weeks after the legal deadline—reveals just how dramatically false this claim is. These ads ought to be pulled down.

His updated budget proposes a $10.6 trillion increase in gross debt through 2022, with debt remaining permanently above 100 percent of GDP. The picture in the out-years looks even bleaker. No change is proposed to our dangerously unsustainable debt course.

The President’s claim his tax hikes are for deficit reduction is shown to be false as well. His budget proposes to spend $46.2 trillion over ten years—an increase of nearly one-and-half trillion dollars above the current law baseline and a 57 percent increase above today’s spending levels. The President’s $1.8 trillion tax increase is not used to reduce the deficit but to fund this massive increase above what we are currently planning to spend.

Meanwhile, the President’s party in the Senate has refused to even produce a budget plan at all for three straight years.

This chart shows in simple form what Obama means by “paying down the debt.”

Barack Obama is a liar of truly epic proportions.

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