Deficit figures set up competing visions from Biden and GOP

By JOSH BOAK
Associated Press

This fiscal year’s budget deficit shrunk in half from last year, but the red ink soared on a monthly basis in September. That’s largely because of President Joe Biden’s plans to forgive student debt, as three decades’ worth of costs were compressed into a single month. The budget figures released Friday by the Treasury Department reveal dueling visions about what it means to be financially responsible. Biden can rightly claim that the budget deficit for fiscal 2022 plunged $1.4 trillion from the prior year. But critics can use the same report to say that forgiving education loans pushed up the federal debt by roughly $400 billion as the government booked the full expense.