What Budget Deficits Don't Tell You About the Debt

There's a lot of argument over which President ran the highest deficits, and contributed the most to the national debt. It's not as easy as you might think to determine how much deficit each President created. The easy way is to look at the deficit by year for the length of their terms.

However, the President isn't responsible for the budget deficit that accrues for his first calendar year in office (January through December).

That's because the budget for January through September 30 of that year was already set by the prior President. The Federal government's fiscal year runs from October 1 through September 30.

Here's an example of how it works. President Bush submitted the FY 2009 budget to Congress in February 2008. Congress approved it, and it took effect October 1 2008. President Obama was elected in November 2008, and started office in January 2009. He had to live with President Bush's budget until his budget was approved and took effect October 1 2009.

This is also a rare example of how a President can add to the previous budget. Right after President Obama took office, the Dow dropped to 6,594.44 and sparked fears of the recession worsening. Obama got
Congressional approval to pass the Economic Stimulus Act. Congress authorized another $253 billion to be spent immediately, adding that amount to Bush's FY 2009 budget.

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