Gaffeteria

Turkeys, from timduru.org.

Barack Obama, sometime after 9:00, September 12, 2013:

Tonight, I’ll lay out additional proposals that are fully paid for and fully consistent with the budget framework both parties agreed to just 18 months ago. Let me repeat – nothing I’m proposing tonight should increase our deficit by a single dime.

National Review Online, shortly after 11:00:

VIDEO: Oddly, despite president's repeated promise not to increase deficit 'a single dime,' deficit keeps growing - bit.ly/WHT4Hp
— National Review (@NRO) February 13, 2013

Go ahead and watch the video if you want. It features President Obama saying many, many times that this or that program is not going to add one dime to the deficit. And then those brilliant minds at the National Review put on a title that says

Hahahahahaha, the national debt went up by 58 trillion dimes!!!!

But guess what, children, the debt and the deficit are different things. And the deficit has indeed been increasing by rather less than a single dime over the past four years. As in look:

Recent US Federal Deficit Numbers

Obama Deficits	Bush Deficits
FY 2013*: $901 billion	FY 2009†: $1,413 billion
FY 2012: $1,089 billion	FY 2008: $459 billion
FY 2011: $1,300 billion	FY 2007: $161 billion
FY 2010: $1,293 billion

Although the federal deficit is the amount each year by which federal outlays in the federal budget exceed federal receipts, the gross federal debt increases each year by substantially more than the amount of the deficit each year. That is because a substantial amount of federal borrowing is not counted in the budget. See here.

Note:

* Federal Deficit is budgeted.
† Some people have emailed to insist that the FY 2009 deficit should be assigned to Obama. Good point.*

*I don't know what's good about it. The FY 2009 deficit is not assigned to Obama because it is Bush's expenditures, over which Obama had no control.

Indeed, Obama has added negative dimes to the deficit, lots and lots of negative dimes, so fast that some people are a little bit worried about it, like super-liberal Investor's Business Daily:

Believe it or not, the federal deficit has fallen faster over the past three years than it has in any such stretch since demobilization from World War II.

In fact, outside of that post-WWII era, the only time the deficit has fallen faster was when the economy relapsed in 1937, turning the Great Depression into a decade-long affair.

It is not surprising that the debt has gotten larger. That's what happens when there's a deficit. What is surprising is that these guys at the National Review still haven't learned the difference! Liars or stupid? You decide.