Are you perhaps referring to this white house talking point? (please cite your sources next time.)

Budget of the United States Government, FY 2006
"The best way to compare annual deficit levels is by analyzing their size relative to the overall size of the economy, as measured by GDP. Such a comparison gives the most meaningful measure of the size and scale of deficits, spending, and revenue. After all, a deficit of $100 billion is less than 1 percent of our $12 trillion economy. But $100 billion would have represented 10 percent of the $1 trillion economy of 1970."

Measuring the national debt "as a percentage of GDP" is a bunch of crap and spin and YOU KNOW IT.

http://zfacts.com/p/519.html
"First, be careful, the deficit is annual additions to national debt. So all he's saying is that the national debt is not going up as fast as it had been. It's certainly not going down (as it did in between 1995 and 2001 — see graph). So in terms of the accumulated national debt, we haven't cut anything except its rate of increase (that's better, but the debt is still headed the wrong way)."

They are also taking a LOT of money out of the Social Security Trust Fund so that the deficit numbers don't look AS bad.