When it comes to deficit reduction, President Obama and the mainstream press seem to have a fascination with the figure of $4 trillion. During last year’s first presidential debate, Obama falsely claimed, “I’ve put forward a specific $4 trillion deficit reduction plan,” even though he’d done nothing of the sort. 

Now, the Wall Street Journal claims, “The Congressional Budget Office estimates it would take about $4 trillion in deficit reduction to bring the budget into balance by 2023.”  But that’s not what the CBO says.  In fact, the CBO describes the challenge we face as being about 75 percent — and $3 trillion — bigger than that.  It writes, “For the 2014-23 period, deficits in CBO’s baseline projections”—which means projections under current law — “total $7.0 trillion.”