The federal deficit at the end of each president's first budget is annotated; the preceding dot shows the federal deficit that was inherited from the previous president's final budget. For example, Reagan inherited a deficit of $79 billion from his predecessor's final budget (first dot) and Reagan's first budget ended with a federal deficit of $128 billion (second dot).
Chart: A-Mark FoundationSource: U.S. Office of Management and BudgetGet the dataDownload imageCreated with Datawrapper