evidence: "Let me remind you again: I reduced the federal deficit," Biden said in a speech on Wednesday. "All the talk about the deficit from my Republican friends, I love it. I’ve reduced it $350 billion in my first year in office. And we’re on track to reduce it, by the end of September, by another 1 trillion, 500 billion dollars – the largest drop ever." [...] The roughly $2.8 trillion deficit in fiscal 2021, during which Biden was in office for more than eight months, was about $360 billion lower than the roughly $3.1 trillion deficit in fiscal 2020, Trump’s last full fiscal year in office. [...] Joel Friedman, senior vice president for federal fiscal policy at the liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities think tank, said in an email that the deficit has fallen under Biden in part because pandemic measures have expired but also "because of strong economic growth" Friedman said is "related" to the pandemic measures.