U.S. Budget Deficits by President

Search Fintrev

Search our guides, reviews and glossary.

Current Values

No, Barack Obama did not run a budget surplus. The federal government ran a deficit in every fiscal year of his presidency. The deficit reached a then-record $1.4 trillion in fiscal year 2009, the year he took office during the global financial crisis. It stayed above $1 trillion through 2012 and then declined in his later years. Obama’s fiscal years (2010 to 2017) add up to a combined balance of −$6.53 trillion, an average of −$816 billion per year. Of the presidents listed back to Herbert Hoover, Bill Clinton is the only one whose term total is positive: +$63 billion across fiscal years 1994 to 2001.

How the Table Assigns Fiscal Years to Presidents

The federal fiscal year runs from Oct. 1 to Sept. 30. A president inaugurated in January takes over a fiscal year that started almost four months earlier, under a budget that the previous administration and Congress already set.

The table handles this by crediting a president with the fiscal years that begin after the inauguration year. Obama took office in 2009, so his column starts with fiscal 2010. Fiscal 2009, the $1.4 trillion year, falls in George W. Bush’s range (2002 to 2009). Clinton’s range (1994 to 2001) includes fiscal 2001, which began in October 2000 while he was still in office.

This convention is a reasonable approximation, not the only defensible one. Fiscal 2009 began under Bush, but Obama then signed stimulus legislation that added spending within the same year, so responsibility for that deficit was shared between the outgoing administration, the incoming one and Congress.

Hypothetical example: a president serves fiscal years with balances of −$400 billion, −$300 billion, −$200 billion and −$100 billion, and the predecessor’s last year was −$900 billion. Under this table’s method, the term total is −$1.0 trillion. If the inherited year were counted instead of the last one, the total would be −$1.8 trillion.

Reading the Totals and Averages

Each row rests on these calculations:

• Annual balance = federal receipts − federal outlays for one fiscal year. A negative number is a deficit and a positive one is a surplus.
• Total balance = the sum of the annual balances in the president’s fiscal-year range.
• Average per year = total balance ÷ number of fiscal years in the range.

The ranking depends on which column you sort by. By total, the largest cumulative deficits belong to Donald Trump’s first term (−$7.67 trillion), then Joe Biden (−$6.68 trillion), then Obama (−$6.53 trillion). Obama’s total is close to Biden’s, but it covers eight fiscal years instead of four, so his annual average is roughly half of Biden’s. Because two-term presidents build larger totals simply by serving more years, the average is the fairer basis for comparing terms of different length.

Trump’s current row covers only one fiscal year so far. It can be compared with other presidents’ averages, but not with their full-term totals.

The total also hides the direction of change. Clinton’s +$63 billion combines four deficit years at the start of his presidency with four surplus years at the end. Comparing each president’s first and last annual figures shows who actually reduced the deficit: Clinton moved the budget from deficit to surplus, and Obama finished with a far smaller deficit than the one he inherited in 2009, although every one of his years was still in deficit.

What Drives the Deficit

A president proposes a budget, but Congress approves all spending and writes the tax law, so a president’s control is limited. It narrows further when the opposing party holds the House, the Senate or both.

Most federal spending is not decided in the annual budget fight. Discretionary spending, set by Congress each year, is only about one-third of a typical budget. The rest is mandatory spending under existing law, led by Social Security and Medicare, which grow with eligibility and enrollment no matter who is in office. Much of the gap therefore comes from commitments made decades ago and renewed by many Congresses.

The other main drivers show up repeatedly in the record:

• Recessions cut tax receipts and raise spending on programs such as unemployment benefits, without any new law being passed.
• Tax legislation changes receipts for many years after it passes.
• Wars and defense buildups raise outlays.
• Emergency measures, such as the financial-crisis response and the COVID-19 relief packages, can add trillions within one or two fiscal years.

The Record by Administration

The two world wars produced the biggest deficits of the early 20th century. The government has run a deficit in nearly every year since 1961, and deficits grew much larger in the 1970s and 1980s.

Ronald Reagan promised to shrink government. During his eight years, however, the deficit roughly doubled and topped $200 billion several times. When he left office in 1989, the deficit equaled about 5% of the economy, and interest on the debt came to $169 billion that year. George H.W. Bush then presided over a record $290 billion deficit in 1992.

Bill Clinton agreed to steady deficit reduction under pressure from a Republican Congress, and the budget reached its first surplus in decades. The surplus was $236 billion in 2000. The $128 billion surplus in fiscal 2001 is the most recent the country has recorded.

George W. Bush argued that the Clinton surplus showed taxes were too high. He signed large tax cuts while spending rose, and the budget returned to deficit. The deficit hit a record $458 billion in 2008, then roughly tripled in fiscal 2009 as the financial crisis hit.

Trump’s first term combined major tax cuts with higher defense spending. His first budget year, fiscal 2018, ended with a $779 billion deficit, and fiscal 2019 reached $984 billion. Fiscal 2020 then surged when Congress passed several pandemic relief packages.

Biden inherited pandemic-era deficits. They fell from their peak as emergency programs expired but stayed high by historical standards. His administration also funded infrastructure, clean energy and semiconductor manufacturing.

Trump’s second term has sought cuts to non-defense discretionary spending, more money for defense and border security, and an extension of provisions from the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Analysts projected that extending those tax cuts would raise deficits over the following decade.

Limits of the Data

The figures are nominal dollars as reported by the Office of Management and Budget and Treasury, with no adjustment for inflation or economic growth. A $290 billion deficit in 1992 and a similar dollar figure today represent very different burdens, which is why the World War II deficits rank as the largest relative to the economy even though recent dollar figures are much larger.

The deficit measures one year’s gap between receipts and outlays. It is not the national debt, which is the accumulated stock of borrowing.

Historical Data

All10Y

FAQs

The Bottom Line

Readers comparing presidents on deficits should rely on the average per year rather than the term total, since two-term presidents pile up larger sums by serving longer. The figures are nominal dollars with no inflation adjustment, and much of each deficit reflects Congress, recessions, emergencies and long-standing mandatory programs. A president's first and last annual figures show more about whether the deficit actually shrank.