http://thedailybanter.com/2016/02/a-new-polls-illustrates/
"Yes, 73 percent of Americans think the deficit has grown under Obama, even though when all is said and done, it's gone down by more than a trillion dollars. Hell, the pollsters even explained what the deficit is, and they still didn't get it. Indeed, the deficit stood at $1.4 trillion by late 2009 as a consequence of George W. Bush's authorization of that year's spending, which occurs the October before the end of the year. In other words, Bush approved $1.2 trillion of 2009's deficit spending in October, 2008. The balance, $200 billion, was Obama's responsibility. Nevertheless, in the years since, Obama has presided over the reduction of the deficit down to $400 billion. That's the biggest cumulative reduction of deficit in American history. And no one knows. Why? Too many people are dumbstupids. That's the main thing. And the GOP has seized upon the less-than-informed status of the American people by deliberately confusing them. The game goes like this: conflate the deficit, which has gone down, with the national debt, which has gone up. The GOP, along with its accomplices at Fox News and AM talk radio, has successfully convinced people that the debt and the deficit are interchangeable. Until Obama was elected, no one really harped on the national debt. But when the deficit began to drop, the disinformation campaign began. It hit its high water mark in 2012 when the Republican presidential nominee, Mitt Romney, routinely mixed up the deficit and the debt."