President Obama has doubled the deficit

It is refreshing to wake up and find that the contest has already been rejoined. I thank my partner for such a timely response.I will now begin rebuttals, and defending my premise. I am not taking these in any deliberate order, but will be working down from R1, and covering as much ground as I am able. To save character space, I will neglect to rebut some of the sillier arguments. 1. According to the CBO (Congressiona Budget Office) President Obama' s budget would add more to the national debt and deficit; increasing the national debt to nearly $18.8 trillion dollars by 2017 We must focus: it has not been 2017, so these events are not relevant to our discussion. We are here to determine whether or not our national deficit (not the debt) has reached $2.3 trillion dollars over Obama' s tenure so far in office, and as a result of his policies. Sadly, any discussion from my partner that does not provide evidence that this benchmark has been crossed will not successfully challenge my premise that it has not. (Please keep this in mind.)2. President Obama' s policies have doubled the deficit because in 2008 the national deficit was $438 billion dollars.Please source this. At any rate, President Obama was not involved in the budget process in FY 2008, or FY 2009. FY 2009 was signed into law by President Bush, who is responsible for it. [1]3. The President said that he would cut the deficit in half during his first term. He did not do this, therefore he doubled the deficit. Nonsense. 4. I will be the first to admit it the deficit has not been run up (to $2.3 trillion). I certainly do not want to rebut this. This concession supports my premise that President Obama has not run up the national deficit by $2.3 trillion. I am glad that we have found agreement, but I am reluctant to simply close the debate at this point.5. To say that Obama has spent less than every president since Eisenhower is false.And yet, new federal spending under Obama is, in fact, less than what is normal for the office. I am aware that this goes against the conventional wisdom, which paints the President as a prolifigate spender. And yet, it is very much true. Upon taking office, President Obama and the Democratic Congress passed the "Pay as You Go Act," which mandated that new spending has to be offset with cuts to existing spending, or with new revenues. [2] He also froze all new federal spending [4] 6. President Obama has stabilized the national deficit by adding more people to welfare and putting 2 wars on the credit card.President Obama was not president when the FY 2008 and FY 2009 budgets were signed into law. He was also not president when we invaded Iraq and became became mired in Afghanistan. This president withdrew troops from Iraq, and is preparing to draw down troops from Afghanistan. This will remove the two wars from the credit card - not add them. My argument, as of this round, is:My partner agreed with me that the national deficit has not reached $2.3 trillion as a result of President Obama' s policies. As this is a necessary and sufficient component for my being named the winner of this debate, I ask that this be made a factor as the judges reading along are scoring my performance here. In order to challenge my premise, my partner will need to demonstrate that I am mistaken, and that President Obama' s policies have been responsible for doubling the deficit in his first term. This is clearly impossible - because the deficit has not doubled, but has been reduced by 8%. A very readable article that explains this can be found here, courtesy of Politifact: http://www.politifact.com...[1] President Bush was responsible for FY 2009: http://en.wikipedia.org...[2] President Obama signs "Pay-Go" into law: http://www.cbsnews.com...[4] Discretionary Spending Freeze: http://thehill.com...