When Barack Obama became president, he vowed to reduce deficit
spending. Working with liberals in Congress, he increased it.
With Obama's 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 is "savings"
that 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 proposa