One More Must-See Chart On Government Spending Under Obama And Reagan (need FR expertise)

Business Insider ^ | January 28, 2012 | Joe Weisenthal

[w4women]

ORIGINAL POST, SEE UPDATE BELOW: Earlier we made the argument that the Obama recovery has been much more impressive than the Reagan recovery since A) The conditions Obama inherited were wildly worse and B) Federal government spending under Obama didn't grow as fast as it did under Reagan. But we were just looking at Federal Government spending. Here's a look at annual government spending growth at all levels: federal, state, and local.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/one-more-must-see-chart-on-government-spending-under-obama-and-reagan-2012-1#ixzz1ksovU8j1

[w4women]

I'm thinking this looks skewed because there is no correction for inflation, and we are measuring inflation differently now.

Need analysis from Freepers.

[dila813]

The biggest difference was by this time in Reagan, there were month after month of 340k jobs being created and the media saying that isn’t good enough.

Then all of a sudden right before the election there were reports of 430k plus.

The left went ballistic saying that they were faking the jobs reports.

[ClearCase_guy]

If I recall correctly, Obama has had 3 years of deficits which exceed $1.5T annually — and this article is praising is “restrained spending”?? They go back as far as 1954 and conclude that Obama is restrained??

[DuncanWaring]

This article shows "all government spending" - Øbama is getting credit for cuts at the state and municipal level where the governments can't print money.

Back-out those numbers and show us the charts. Where's "Porkulus"?

This is statistical lying akin to the infamous "hockey-stick" graph that ignored the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age.

[w4women]

If you click on the link in the first sentence, it goes to the chart that is federal spending only and it tells the same story. Since it is a % change graph, maybe it looks skewed because it shows TARP, etc. in Bush, but not reflected in Obamas numbers?

[stockpirate]

It appears to be a “percent” scam.......if under RR spending increased from one year to the next by 100 million dollars from 1 million then we have only a 99 million dollar increase but the percentage is huge.

Now under Obama if he went from Bush 2T in spending to 4T in spending the increase as a percent is not that much, but the problem is in real dollars.

This is just another scam put out by the fascists.

[Da Bilge Troll]

“Restrained”! Bwaahahaha!

[ConjunctionJunction]

These are the same people who publish the “scariest jobs chart” every month:

http://articles.businessinsider.com/2012-01-06/markets/30596559_1_jobs-recovery-job-losses-chart

Who looks better? Ronnie or Obama?

[TwelveOfTwenty]

I was in the mall a few days ago. About 20% of the stores were vacant, as well as many of the stands. Mind you, this is right AFTER the holiday season. I don’t need a rebuttal of this article to see how bad things are.

[fhayek]

I think the way you need to think about this is that, sure, government spending was increasing, but so was the size of the economy. More economic growth means more revenue, so government CAN spend more without increasing the deficit. They would have you believe that government spending under Reagan caused the economy to grow. The truth is that a growing economy produced more tax revenues for the government. We still ran annual deficits, but by the end of the Reagan years, they were becoming small when compared to the economy as a whole. When you think about it, government spending will ALWAYS increase in growing economies, there are more resources to tap. How much does the Haitian government spend each year?

Obama is increasing spending in a low growth/no growth environment. He has the belief that government spending spurs economic growth. We now have world history example number 984 that this doesn't work. He is not spending from a growing economy, he is usurping wealth from generations unborn in a futile attempt to make today's economy better. I always love it when commentators tell us that there is a multiplier effect when a stimulus dollar is introduced in the economy. Wouldn't there be a similar (yet higher) negative effect when that dollar is pulled out to pay the debt, with interest?

[BfloGuy]

I agree with stockpirate. The only sensible way to compare federal spending levels in different years is to do so as a percentage of GDP. Increases from the previous year do tell us something, but perhaps not what this rag is claiming.

Interesting that they had to be shamed by commenters into adjusting their initial figures for inflation. That should be a given and inflation was something like 11% when Reagan took office. Just a bit agenda-driven methinks.

[80sReaganite]

“There are lies, damn lies and statistics.” - Mark Twain

Who cares how much the % change is from year to year?

It is deficit spending that significantly contributes to the national debit, which by the way has growth $6.3 TRILLION dollars under Obama - nearly as much as all of his predecessors from George Washington through George W Bush.

Obama’s “budget” (I put it quotes because technically, the Senate under Harry Reid, has not passed a budget in 2 1/2 years - the country is running on a series of C.R.’s) was -10.0% in 2009. -8.9% in 2010 and nearly -11% in 2011.

No president since FDR has presided over such spending. Spending we will all be on the hook for in the coming decades...

[BfloGuy]

P.S.: Here we go.

I can't find the figures behind this graph right at the moment, but it's easy to see that spending as a percentage of GDP was lower during Reagan's term -- and -- dropped as his term progressed.

Obama's has gone straight up.

[LucianOfSamasota]

His first chart indicates that Government spending never increased by more than 7% under Obama, whereas it increased by roughly 14% under Reagan.

Here is the CBO data for Federal Revenues, Outlays, Deficits, Surpluses, and Debt Held by the Public, 1971 to 2010, in Billions of Dollars:

Revenues Outlays On-Budget

1971 187.1 | 210.2 | -26.1
1972 207.3 | 230.7 | -26.1
1973 230.8 | 245.7 | -15.2
1974 263.2 | 269.4 | -7.2
1975 279.1 | 332.3 | -54.1
1976 298.1 | 371.8 | -69.4
1977 355.6 | 409.2 | -49.9
1978 399.6 | 458.7 | -55.4
1979 463.3 | 504.0 | -39.6

1980 517.1 | 590.9 | -73.1
1981 599.3 | 678.2 | -73.9
1982 617.8 | 745.7 | -120.6
1983 600.6 | 808.4 | -207.7
1984 666.4 | 851.8 | -185.3
1985 734.0 | 946.3 | -221.5
1986 769.2 | 990.4 | -237.9
1987 854.3 | 1,004.0 | -168.4
1988 909.2 | 1,064.4 | -192.3
1989 991.1 | 1,143.7 | -205.4

1990 1,032.0 | 1,253.0 | -277.6
1991 1,055.0 | 1,324.2 | -321.4
1992 1,091.2 | 1,381.5 | -340.4
1993 1,154.3 | 1,409.4 | -300.4
1994 1,258.6 | 1,461.8 | -258.8
1995 1,351.8 | 1,515.7 | -226.4
1996 1,453.1 | 1,560.5 | -174.0
1997 1,579.2 | 1,601.1 | -103.2
1998 1,721.7 | 1,652.5 | -29.9
1999 1,827.5 | 1,701.8 | 1.9

2000 2,025.2 | 1,789.0 | 86.4
2001 1,991.1 | 1,862.8 | -32.4
2002 1,853.1 | 2,010.9 | -317.4
2003 1,782.3 | 2,159.9 | -538.4
2004 1,880.1 | 2,292.8 | -568.0
2005 2,153.6 | 2,472.0 | -493.6
2006 2,406.9 | 2,655.1 | -434.5
2007 2,568.0 | 2,728.7 | -342.2
2008 2,524.0 | 2,982.5 | -641.8
2009 2,105.0 | 3,517.7 | -1,549.7

2010 2,161.7 | 3,455.8 | -1,371.1

Sources: Congressional Budget Office; Office of Management and Budget.

http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/120xx/doc12039/HistoricalTables%5B1%5D.pdf

or excel available at:
http://www.cbo.gov/budget/budget.cfm
(Halfway down right hand column)

So the CBO believes that Federal spending increased by $535.2 billion or 18% from 2008 to 2009, an increase which is not shown on the charts in your link. The budget has stayed at that increased level ever since.

Technically, that increase occurred on Bush’s watch; and I’m sure it represents (largely) the TARP bailouts? The problem is that these spending levels only go up, even if the increase was a ‘one-time’ emergency. The point relating to your question, though, is that the charts in your link do not agree with CBO figures, which means that either GEXPND is some measure of spending other than total outlays, or the numbers are fictitious.

Personally, I think it makes more sense to compare outlays and deficits to control of Congress rather than control of the executive.

[w4women]

Thanks for your time and perspective.

[LucianOfSamasota]

w4women:

I apologize for misleading you with my earlier post. CBO years represent COMPLETE calender years and are tabulated at the beginning of the following year, i.e. 2009 represents all Federal outlays for 2009, but was compiled in early 2010.

So Bush’s last year, including TARP, was 2008. Federal spending for 2008 was 9.3% higher than 2007, and we can blame this on Bush, his Democrat Congress, and TARP. But TARP was supposed to be a one-time emergency, and should not be reflected in future years.

2009 was the year Obama passed Stimulus, with his super-majority Democrat Congress. So the 17.9% increase from 2008 to 2009 was due to the one time emergency Stimulus. But as you can see, once the budget reached $3.5 Trillion, it stayed at that level.

But either way, the CBO numbers do not agree with the charts in your link. Sorry I had the years mixed up in my first post.