You make a good point about Congress... And it is fair to see how the deficit changes.It's an interesting graph, however you left out a big piece of information: the budget and economic plan is only proposed by the President, and to get it approved, there has to be negotiation between the executive branch and both chambers of congress. Congress adds it's own budget items.
Here is a better perspective:
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Debt is misleading as that is the overall number rather than who is increasing the yearly borrowing or lowering it... Before we throw the economy off the cliff by bring the deficit to zero over night wouldn't it be better to see who increases it or decreases it...
GOP's various tax cuts over the years have contributed massively to these deficits... The Trump tax cut is the problem now... GOP acted totally irresponsibly bringing in that cut, it doesn't pay for itself and never will..
This is the standard lie:
This is the truth:
BTW this is a highly inefficient way of running a country. Look at the other countries in the world, like Germany , they just couldn't run a country with volatile changes every 2 years..
This is Germany deficit :
Yes 2009 was bad and so was COVID (2020)... But in the other times they are saving money...
So Germany runs a Debt to GDP of 60% and US runs one at 107%...
Germany is borrowing at the moment for high gas prices (they are supplementing there citizens energy costs), they have over a million Ukraine refugees and still things picking up from COVID(car manufacturing not 100% back)..
They will get it back and they will still have strong environmental laws, universal healthcare and free third level education... i.e. they are and will be a strong social democrat economy and society..