Here’s President Obama in his weekly address on Saturday:
In a little over three years, our businesses have created more than 6.5 million new jobs.
… Corporate profits have skyrocketed to all-time highs.
… Our housing market is healing.
… And our deficits are shrinking at the fastest rate in decades.
If you studied my post last Wednesday on the CBO baseline update, this should strike you as an odd boast.
CBO projects that under current law we would have a deficit of 4% of GDP for 2013, meaning that our debt/GDP will continue to rise. CBO further projects that under the President’s budget we would have a deficit of 4.2% of GDP for 2013, slightly higher than their projected deficit under current law.
President Obama’s words: Our deficits are shrinking at the fastest rate in decades.
Translation 1: The rate at which we’re rolling backwards is slowing dramatically.
or Translation 2: Our debt problem is getting worse much more slowly than in recent years.
That is not something you should boast about. You’re supposed to boast when things are getting better, not when they’re getting worse more slowly.