All I'm saying is that by definition: Deficit = Spending - Revenue. Whether Increasing Spending has any effect on Revenue is another debate, but if Spending goes up and Revenue goes down, then tautologically Deficit goes up. If Spending goes down and Revenue goes up, then by by definition Deficit goes down. These are not independent variables, but the statements above are tautological. And no, 2+2 = 5 for large values of 2. I'm an analyst :)