Fact check: Up and down: federal deficits from 2007 to 2015
October 30, 2015
By Charles Aull
Congressman Tom Cole of Oklahoma (R) said in a recent C-SPAN interview, "Every year the Democrats were in power in the House and the Senate from '07 to '11, the deficit went up, and this was before the fiscal crisis of late 2008. And every year the Republicans have been in power since then, the deficit has come down."
We looked into Cole's statement and found it to be mostly true, though it glosses over a couple of details. He's right that, overall, the deficit trended upwards between 2007 and 2011 and has steadily decreased since then. But not every year between 2007 and 2011 saw increases, and his statement obscures the shared responsibility between the Republican-controlled House and the Democratic-controlled Senate for the budgets that Congress passed between 2011 and 2015.
Background
A seven-term Republican representing Oklahoma's fourth district, Cole made his statement about the deficit following a call from a viewer in an October 27 C-SPAN interview. The caller questioned Cole about his party's commitment to fiscal responsibility, saying, "if you want to claim that the GOP is fiscally responsible, then you have to prove that by not just saying it [but] by actions."
Cole responded, "In terms of the fiscal discussion, we can debate this a lot of different ways. I guess I could argue that every year the Democrats were in power in the House and the Senate from 07 to 11, the deficit went up, and this was before the fiscal crisis of late 2008. And every year the Republicans have been in power since then, the deficit has come down."
We reached out to Cole's office for comment but have not yet heard back. When we do, we will update this article accordingly.
Budget basics
Before examining Cole's statement, we should start with some budget basics—namely, who is actually responsible for the federal budget, how does it work and what is a deficit?
The House of Representatives, the Senate and the Office of the President share the responsibility of drafting a budget and passing it into law.
In February, the President submits a detailed spending proposal to Congress. Congress uses this proposal to propose a financial plan called a "budget resolution." This plan is agreed upon by the House and Senate and establishes spending targets and revenue from taxation. Next, usually in the early Spring, the process turns to legislation that sets the actual funding and revenue levels for the various departments and agencies of the federal government. The process unfolds in a series of committees and subcommittees in both chambers of Congress until an agreement is reached. The president's signature concludes the budget process, ideally, by October 1, which is when the federal fiscal year begins.
The budget process frequently extends beyond the October 1 deadline, requiring Congress to pass legislation known as "continuing resolutions." These bills prevent a government shutdown by prolonging previously-established spending levels until a compromise between the House, the Senate and the president can be reached.
What about the deficit?
A deficit refers to the negative gap between how much money the government spends—known as outlays—versus how much money it has coming in—known as receipts. A positive gap is called a surplus. As seen in the graph below, the U.S. has had a deficit every year since 1969 with the exception of 1998 to 2001.
The federal deficit is different from federal debt, which is the cumulative amount of money that the U.S. Treasury Department borrows each year to come up with enough cash to pay for a deficit. Some refer to federal (often called public) debt as "accumulated deficits."
The line graphs below depict actual deficits and deficits as percentages of total federal outlays from 1969 to 2015.
Deficits from 2007 to 2015
To examine Cole's comments on the deficit, we turned to two resources: the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), a nonpartisan government agency responsible for producing "independent analyses of budgetary and economic issues" for Congress, and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), the executive branch office that assists the president with preparing an annual budget proposal. The CBO and OMB maintain documents containing detailed information on federal budgets going back to the early 20th century.
We can start with the first part of Cole's statement.
Between 2007 and 2011, Democrats controlled the House and the Senate and can be considered responsible for four budgets: 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011. The 2007 budget was set the previous year, when Republicans held majorities in both chambers. We include it in our analysis only to provide further context.
The chart below is based on data from the CBO and OMB, and it shows that the budgets from 2007 to 2011 did indeed see the deficit increase, as Cole argued. In fact, the deficit in 2009 was $1.4 trillion, one of the largest—some say the largest—deficits in American history. But in 2010, the deficit decreased by more than $100 billion, from $1.4 trillion to $1.29 trillion. Cole's comment that the deficit increased every year between 2007 and 2011 overlooks this detail.
What about the deficit since 2011? Did it consistently decrease under Republicans?
The chart below shows that between 2012 and 2014 the deficit shrunk every year, and this year CBO estimations place the deficit at $426 billion, about $32 billion lower than the deficit before the recession began in 2008. Some economists, such as Justin Wolfers, a professor of economics and public policy at the University of Michigan, have called this trend the "largest four-year improvement" in almost seven decades. Cole, then, was right about the decrease. On the other hand, one could quibble with his statement that the deficit has decreased every year since "Republicans have been in power." Republicans took control of the House in 2011 but Democrats controlled the upper chamber until 2015. This means that congressional responsibility for the budgets from 2012 to 2015 was shared by a Republican-controlled House and a Democratic-controlled Senate.
Conclusion
We make no arguments here about causation or the extenuating circumstances that can shape the budget process. Instead, we argue that Cole's statement is mostly true, though it skims over two issues. He's right when he says that Democrats in the House and Senate oversaw the budget processes from 2008 to 2011. But, while three of these years saw deficit increases, one of them didn't. The 2010 budget marked a $100 billion-plus decrease. Similarly, Cole was accurate when he said that the deficit has shrunk every year since 2011. But, saying that this occurred every year since "Republicans have been in power" glosses over the fact that Democrats retained control of the Senate until 2015 and that congressional responsibility for the budget is shared by both chambers.
Launched in October 2015 and active through October 2018, Fact Check by Ballotpedia examined claims made by elected officials, political appointees, and political candidates at the federal, state, and local levels. We evaluated claims made by politicians of all backgrounds and affiliations, subjecting them to the same objective and neutral examination process. As of 2025, Ballotpedia staff periodically review these articles to revaluate and reaffirm our conclusions. Please email us with questions, comments, or concerns about these articles. To learn more about fact-checking, click here.
TreasuryDirect.gov, "Debt versus Deficit: What’s the Difference?" August 5, 2004
Congressional Budget Office, "Historical Budget Data," January 26, 2015
Office of Management and Budget, "Historical Tables: Budget of the U.S. Government," June 1, 2014
Congressional Budget Office, "Budget," accessed October 28, 2015
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