Over the past several months, numerous "right wing" outlets have reported that President Trump was the first President to see the national debt decline in generations and that the debt not going up was proof of MR Trump's business acumen.

As President Trump would say "Fake News".

The reason the national debt was not going up the past several months was not due to the Federal Government tightening their purse strings, but rather accounting gimmicks that the Treasury Department uses about this time every year.

For a full rundown of the chicanery the Treasury uses, look no further than their own website:  https://www.treasury.gov/initiatives/Documents/Description_of_Extraordinary_Measures_2017_03_16.pdf

In layman's terms the government takes funds that should go to Federal workers pensions and retirement accounts and diverts those payments to paying ongoing bills.  ....

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