I love to dispell myths with data. It makes me happy :)

What’s great about the subject like deficits is that the data points are fairly straight forward. The data points around who’s to blame for deficits are not that exact but let’s take a stab at it.

I frequently hear the claim that Democrats are better at containing costs and deficits than Repbulicans. Better check your math.

Let’s go to the data. Guess what… you can do this yourself if you know a little Excel.

Go to the archived Obama website (just to make sure I’m being fair I’m using the data from the previous party in power) https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/omb/budget/Historical Download a historical table. The first one will do: “Table 1.1 — Summary of Receipts, Outlays, and Surpluses or Deficits (-): 1789 — 2021” Add a column and label the years from 1970 to 2016 with which party was in control of the White House (we can get more granular later)

I did some Pivot tables here are the results:

Deficits by Party in Control of the Presidency

Deficits run up by sitting President by party since 1970:

DEM $(7,859,779)

GOP $(4,474,671)

(note: these numbers are in the thousands… so that’s $7 Trillion in deficits vs. $4 Trillion). From this angle, it’s hard to state that the GOP is worse than the DEMs at keeping down the deficit. I would say it is factually true that Democrat Presidents are worse.

Deficits by Party in Control of the House and Senate

This time we’re looking at which party was in control of the House and Senate or if the power was split.

Disregarding the party that owns the White House and just looking at who controlled the House and the Senate. Since 1970, if you examine budget deficits according to actual outlays and receipts for each year the breakdown is as follows:

DEM. $(6,597,219)

GOP $(2,302,718)

SPLIT $(3,434,513)

Again, these are in 1000's of dollars = TRILLIONS.

And once again from this angle the data says that the best way to keep the budget deficits under control is to elect Republicans to the House and Senate.

Deficits by Balance of Party in Power

You know — I want to be ABSOLUTELY fair in this so I parsed it another way looking at the total balance of party power across these 2 branches of government. So, if the DEMs or the GOP controlled the White House, Senate and House then I assigned the year to that party otherwise I put SPLIT.

DEM $(4,692,288)

GOP $(1,386,361)

SPLIT $(6,255,801)

This time it’s not even close. The DEMs are pretty darn bad at keeping deficits under control. In fact, having a split set of power leads to worsening deficits.

AVERAGE Deficits by Party in Power

I like averages, let’s go with averages. We’ll use those same parameters: White House party, Legislative party, and Overall party power using total number of years in power as the denominator.

The data is all there.

So, since 1970. Average budget deficit by party in charge of the White House (GOP has a record of 40% lower deficits):

DEM $(392,989)

GOP $(165,729)

Since 1970. Average budget deficit by party in charge of the legislative branches or split… this one has the DEMs looking a little better. It certainly shows that split bi-cameral options have more debt. GOP still holding the budget line better.

DEMS $(286,836)

GOP $(164,480)

SPLIT $(343,451)

Since 1970. Average budget deficit by party across the 2 branches… this one is a slam dunk notch against the DEMs. When the Dems own the White House and both legislative houses — deficts increase… pretty dramatically.

DEM $(521,365)

GOP $(231,060)

SPLIT $(195,494)

I frequently hear how people on the right ignore facts and have no data to support their stances. I just used data and I made it available to everyone here. If there’s another way to view this I welcome it.

I should note that both parties have a history of running up some serious deficits and increasing the national debt (which is hovering right now below $20 Trillion). No one can argue that Trump’s budget isn’t the most significant budget cut in almost 50 years. It’s pretty astounding (even if it only lowers the federal budget by 13%).

If you want to reduce deficits the best way to elect a Republican to the White House and majority Republicans in the House and Senate.