At $1.4 trillion, the actual deficit was slightly lower than each had expected in August, when the White House budget office projected a $1.8 trillion deficit and the Congressional office $1.6 trillion.George W. Bush - $1,200,000,000,000
Barack H. Obama - $200,000,000,000
On February 4, 2008, George Bush submitted his FY09 budget requesting $3.1 trillion in spending. That $3.1 trillion did NOT include his $700 billion TARP bailout which he signed eight months later on October 3, 2008. That simple math gets us to $3.8 trillion.
Actually, since Bush never included the spending in Iraq or Afghanistan in his budgets, which Obama now does, it was really $200 billion or so more than that.
The FY09 budget ended 16 days ago on September 30 with spending totaling $3.5 trillion.
As I said the other day, Barack Obama did a tremendous job of managing Bush's devastating 2009 deficit that could have easily been an additional $300 to $500 billion more than what it ended up being. Great job, Mr. President.
