evidence: All these direct programmatic spending cuts also have a secondary spending effect on the budget deficit. Reducing the deficit—either through spending cuts or revenue increases—allows the federal government to incur less debt, which in turn means that there will be less interest to pay back to lenders. In this case, that $1.5 trillion in spending cuts will also result in about $200 billion in reduced spending on interest payments. [...] So where does all this deficit reduction leave us? Since the start of fiscal year 2011, Congress and the president have cut about $1.5 trillion in programmatic spending, raised about $630 billion in new revenue, and generated about $300 billion in interest savings, for a combined total of more than $2.4 trillion in deficit reduction. The result is a substantial cut in how much publicly held debt the country is expected to hold 10 years from now. Instead of reaching nearly 93 percent of GDP, debt is now projected to total about 83 percent of GDP—fully 10 points lower. And while that won’t be enough to finally put the budget onto sustainable footing, it is a massive improvement. In fact, it’s about two-thirds of the way toward stabilizing the debt-to-GDP ratio.