evidence: A staple of President Biden’s speeches on the economy is a dubious claim about the national debt. "In my first two years in office, I have reduced the deficit by $1.7 trillion," Biden said during a recent speech in Chicago. "More than any president has in just two years." [...] Biden can get away with this whopper because the federal deficit in 2020, the year before he took office, was $3.1 trillion. The deficit for 2022, Biden’s second year in office, was $1.4 trillion. The difference is $1.7 trillion, the amount Biden claims to have saved taxpayers. [...] Biden could still concoct a misleading budget claim to use in the heat of the 2024 presidential campaign. Let’s say the 2023 deficit is a flat $2 trillion. That’s still $1.1 trillion less than during the anomalous COVID year of 2020. So he could say he’s lowered annual deficits by $1.1 trillion during his first three years in office. What he won’t say, of course, is that during his first three years, the national debt grew by more than $5 trillion. Better to make a huge increase sound like a decline, and hope voters don’t figure it out.