There’s a big economic debate raging on the pages of the Wall Street Journal and on the political talking head shows about budget deficits.

The chart below will look familiar to regular HOTLINE readers. It compares the Trump and Biden budget deficits – excluding 2020 and 2021, the two years impacted by COVID and lockdowns.

We’ve updated the numbers now that fiscal year 2024 (preliminary) is in the books.

Conclusion: neither president has a good record on the debt and deficits, but the annual levels of red ink were twice as high under Biden. The average deficit was $800 billion under Trump and $1.6 trillion under Biden.

Just setting the record straight.