For that alone, Obama needs to face a tribunal.  This is lunacy.    Remember deficits go by fiscal year.     The United States federal government's fiscal year is the 12-month period beginning 1 October and ending 30 September the following year.   This means the first year of a president's term they are under the budget of the previous president.  The Deficit when Obama stepped into the White House was scheduled to be a Trillion dollars. If you remember there was a full blown financial crisis going on which meant a giant shortfall in tax revenue. Obama's policies didn't take the deficit over a trillion, that was already happening, but he added about $200 billion in stimulus spending that year. You want deficit spending during a recession because otherwise the recession becomes deeper and longer which is exactly what ended up happening in Europe when the practiced austerity. By 2015 coming off a great year economically where we added 3 million jobs, the deficit was down to 435 million. For fiscal year 2019 it's expected to be back to a trillion dollars.  This year, FY 2019, the federal government in its latest budget has estimated that the deficit will be $984 billion.  https://www.usgovernmentdebt.us/federal_deficit The tax cut was promised to pay for itself and it failed spectacularly.  The wealthy and business owner got a great tax break and deficits shot up.  We are increasing the deficit during a good economy and this leaves with less tools to address a downturn in the economy.