When Barack Obama became president, he vowed to reduce deficit spending. Working with liberals in Congress, he increased it. With his term in office not yet completed, the national debt has increased by about $5.4 trillion since he became president.
Now Obama wants voters to believe his plan to cut deficit spending is more appealing than one suggested by his opponent in the presidential election, Mitt Romney.
Obama says he has a plan to reduce deficit spending by about $4 trillion during the next decade. Actually, as analysts point out, that simply isn't true.
About $2 trillion of the amount Obama is counting already is part of a long-term plan approved only because conservatives in Congress insisted on it. Nearly $600 billion more in "savings" would have occurred anyway because of troop reductions in Iraq and Afghanistan.
But the $4 trillion number does have some significance: That happens to be the amount most analysts say the national debt will increase during the next 10 years, if Obama's proposals remain in place.