“By the end of this year,” President Joe Biden boasted in his State of the Union address, “the deficit will be down to less than half what it was before I took office.” The Democrat added that he would soon become the only president “ever to cut the deficit by more than $1 trillion in a single year.”

That was in March, when it wasn’t altogether clear whether his claim would prove true. As The New York Times reported, however, Biden was able to deliver.

The federal budget deficit fell to $1.4 trillion for the 2022 fiscal year, from $2.8 trillion a year ago, a reduction driven primarily by the winding down of pandemic emergency spending and a surge in tax receipts, according to the Treasury Department. President Biden trumpeted the deficit reduction on Friday morning, saying the fact that it was cut roughly in half was evidence that his economic policies were working.

“Today, we have further proof that we’re rebuilding the economy in a responsible way,” Biden said at the White House, adding, “We’re going from a historically strong economic recovery to a steady and stable growth while reducing the deficit.”

Reminding the public about his immediate predecessor’s record, the incumbent president went on to note, “Congressional Republicans love to call Democrats ‘big spenders,’ and they always claim to be for less federal spending. But let’s look at the facts: The federal deficit went up every single year in the Trump administration, every single year he was president. It went up before the pandemic. It went up during the pandemic. It went up every single year on his watch.”

This had the added benefit of being true.

If you didn’t hear about any of this, that’s not too surprising. While Republicans occasionally pretend to care deeply about the deficit, now that it’s shrinking quickly under a Democratic president, the Republican National Committee didn’t bother to issue a statement about the latest data. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy similarly had literally nothing to say in response to the latest developments.

To help contextualize the data, I put together this chart, with red columns from Republican administrations, blue columns from Democratic administrations, and red-and-blue columns from fiscal years that included both Republican and Democratic administrations.

Why does any of this matter? Circling back to our earlier coverage, I think there are a few angles to keep in mind.

First, there’s recent history to consider. As The Washington Post’s Catherine Rampell explained before the Covid-19 crisis, “Federal deficits have widened immensely under Trump’s leadership. This is striking not only because he promised fiscal responsibility — at one time even pledging to eliminate the national debt within eight years — but also because it’s a historical anomaly. Deficits usually narrow when the economy is good and we’re not engaged in a major war. … Trump’s own policies are to blame for this aberration.”

The analysis was plainly true. Team Trump and congressional Republicans swore up and down in late 2017 that they could slash taxes for the wealthy and big corporations without increasing the deficit because, as they repeatedly insisted, “tax cuts pay for themselves.” We didn’t need additional evidence that their ridiculous belief was, and is, wrong, but the evidence soon followed anyway.

Then, of course, the pandemic hit, at which point the annual deficit ballooned to over $3 trillion. Biden set out to make the deficit vastly smaller, and thanks to economic growth, robust job creation, and reduced Covid investments, he’s following through.

Second, I continue to believe the historical pattern is notable. As we’ve discussed, when it comes to the deficit, Americans have endured a remarkably consistent pattern for four decades.

It starts with a Republican presidential candidate denouncing the deficit and vowing to balance the budget if elected. That Republican then takes office, abandons interest in the issue, and expresses indifference when the deficit becomes vastly larger. Then a Democrat takes office, the deficit invariably shrinks — a development Republicans tend to ignore — at which point the entire cycle starts over.

As the cycle spins, polls continue to show that most Americans see Republicans as the party most trustworthy to reduce the deficit, despite reality, because some partisan branding is tough to change, even in the face of four decades’ worth of evidence.

Finally, every time we discuss the deficit, I feel compelled to point out anew that I’m not a deficit hawk, per se, and deficit reduction is not always a worthwhile goal. But I’m also a fan of fiscal debates rooted in facts, and the fact is that Biden-era growth has generated the kind of deficit reduction that the GOP should love.