Three Charts to Email to Your Right Wing Brother in Law

truth-out.org ^ | 8/29/2011 | Dave Johnson

[ozarkgirl]

Three Charts to Email to Your Right-Wing Brother-In-Law Monday 29 August 2011 by: Dave Johnson, Campaign for America's Future | Op-Ed

Federal spending dramatically increased under former president, George W. Bush and it has not increased much under President Obama. (Photo: Eric Draper / White House)

Problem: Your right-wing brother-in-law is plugged into the FOX-Limbaugh lie machine, and keeps sending you emails about "Obama spending" and "Obama deficits" and how the "Stimulus" just made things worse.

Solution: Here are three "reality-based" charts to send to him. These charts show what actually happened.

Spending

Government spending increased dramatically under Bush. It has not increased much under Obama. Note that this chart does not reflect any spending cuts resulting from deficit-cutting deals.

Deficits

Notes, this chart includes Clinton's last budget year for comparison.

The numbers in these two charts come from Budget of the United States Government: Historical Tables Fiscal Year 2012. They are just the amounts that the government spent and borrowed, period, Anyone can go look then up. Peoplewho claim that Obama "tripled the deficit" are either misled or are trying to mislead.

The Stimulus and Jobs

In this chart, the RED lines on the left side -- the ones that keep doing DOWN -- show what happened to jobs under the policies of Bush and the Republicans. We were losing lots and lots of jobs every month, and it was getting worse and worse. The BLUE lines -- the ones that just go UP -- show what happened to jobs when the stimulus was in effect. We stopped losing jobs and started gaining jobs, and it was getting better and better. The leveling off on the right side of the chart shows what happened as the stimulus started to wind down: job creation leveled off at too low a level.

It looks a lot like the stimulus reversed what was going on before the stimulus.

Conclusion: THE STIMULUS WORKED BUT WAS NOT ENOUGH!

More False Things

These are just three of the false things that everyone "knows." Some others are (click through): Obama bailed out the banks, businesses will hire if they get tax cuts, health care reform cost $1 trillion, Social Security is a Ponzi Scheme or is "going broke", government spending "takes money out of the economy."

Why This Matters

These things really matter. We all want to fix the terrible problems the country has. But it is so important to know just what the problems are before you decide how to fix them. Otherwise the things you do to try to solve those problems might just make them worse. If you get tricked into thinking that Obama has made things worse and that we should go back to what we were doing before Obama -- tax cuts for the rich, giving giant corporations and Wall Street everything they want -- when those are the things that caused the problems in the first place, then we will be in real trouble.

1055 Email DAVE JOHNSON Dave Johnson (Redwood City, CA) is a Fellow at Campaign for America's Future, writing about American manufacturing, trade and economic/industrial policy. He is also a Senior Fellow with Renew California.

Dave has more than 20 years of technology industry experience including positions as CEO and VP of marketing. His earlier career included technical positions, including video game design at Atari and Imagic. And he was a pioneer in design and development of productivity and educational applications of personal computers. More recently he helped co-found a company developing desktop systems to validate carbon trading in the US.

[Incorrigible]

No you're not. You're spreading leftist propaganda

It's alright. I like to know what the un-Patriotic types are up to.

.

[kcvl]

In 2007, before the recession, federal expenditures reached $2.73 trillion. By 2009 expenditures had climbed to $3.52 trillion. In 2009 alone, overall federal spending rose 18%, or $536 billion. Throw in a $65 billion reduction in debt service costs due to low interest rates, and the overall spending increase was 22%.

In one year.

CBO confirms that Democrats have taken federal spending to a new and higher plateau: 24.7% of GDP in 2009, 24.1% this year, and back to an estimated 24.3% in 2011. The modern historical average is about 20.5%, and less than that if you exclude the Reagan defense buildup of the 1980s that helped to win the Cold War and let Bill Clinton reduce defense spending to 3% of GDP in the 1990s.

http://tinyurl.com/yk3bac8

[Retired Greyhound]

You mean the Right-Wing brother in law that liberals will run to in a crisis because he has guns and is prepared, because he doesn’t live off or depend on the government?

The Right-Wing brother in law that you will call when you need to borrow money or need a job?

I am the Right-wing brother in law or liberal in-laws.

[ozarkgirl]

They are claiming that Bush was the bigger spender?

Percentage wise

I'm still searching. My fear is, could be - because of the wars and Clinton's "balancing the budget", percentage wise, this could be correct so I guess I'll probably get on the or create a graph that shows the difference between billions and trillions.

[Steamburg]

All I see is that Bush had Clinton’s recession, 911, a Congress mandated war in Iraq, Katrina, and suddenly, from 2007 on, a Democrat Congress. I don’t see how any of this has much to do with Bush. He had a growing economy until the Democrats crashed it in the last quarter, for the election. He had an unemployment rate of 5.5% when he left office and less than half the current debt. These numbers are not only spurious, but mal-attributed and simply don’t merit further discussion.

[bootless]

This might be a good time to repost what PLD wrote before the 2008 election:

George Bush has been in office for 7½ years. The first six the economy was fine. In spite of the mid-2000 Clinton recession, it was even resilient enough to rebound after 9/11. A little over one year ago:

1. Consumer confidence stood at a 2½ year high;
2. Regular gasoline sold for $2.19 a gallon;
3. The unemployment rate was 4.5%.
4. The Dow Jones hit a record high—14,000
5. Americans were buying new cars, stoking the economy, taking cruises, vacationing overseas, living large!

But Americans wanted change! So, in 2006 they voted in a Democratic Congress and yes—we got CHANGE all right. In the past year:

1. Consumer confidence has plummeted;
2. Gasoline is now over $3.75 a gallon, and it had hit well over $4 a gallon;
3. Unemployment is up to 5.5% (a 10% increase);
4. Americans have seen their home equity drop by $12 TRILLION dollars, with prices still dropping;
5. 1% of American homes are in foreclosure.
6. As I write, the Dow is probing another low: $2.5 TRILLION dollars have evaporated from Americans’ stocks, bonds and mutual funds investment portfolios.

Yes, in 2006, America voted for change ... and we sure got it! Remember, the President has no control over any of these issues - only Congress. And what has Congress done in the last two years? Absolutely nothing! They certainly haven’t improved the situation. They’ve made it much worse.

Stop and think about that for a moment. Now the Democratic candidate for President claims he is going to really give us change along with a Democratic Congress!

Just how much more change do you think you can stand?

[ozarkgirl]

Well for one, spending under Dubya wasn’t that bad until January of 2007 when the dems took the house.

Yessss!! I knew that...I'll pursue that, and of course we did get attacked and yes, I know wars cost money.

Just had an odd thought...

Okay, I think I know what I'll do, I'll be a liberal and jump all over Obama for not doing what he promised, he said he'd close Gitmo, he said he'd get us out of Iraq. hehe

Liberals don't like facts anyway and it would take too much work to provide them. Change of plans.

[Califelephant]

Here’s an alternative chart for you:

Bush Deficit vs. Obama Deficit in Pictures
http://blog.heritage.org/2009/03/24/bush-deficit-vs-obama-deficit-in-pictures/

[Cobra64]

I'm scrambling around trying to refute this. This is soon to be a former "facebook" friend. Last time someone on her page posted that despite the GOP "propaganda", that George Bush raised cigarette taxes on people who smoke, unfortunately that is typically poor people. I was able to prove that OBAMA was the one who raised cigarette taxes, he didn't respond after that. I'd love to refute this as well but don't know, could be true because based on percentages.

Who cares about cigarette taxes? (By the way, I smoke cigarettes)

This chart is BS. It fails to mention which party controlled the legislature during the Bush administration. The $1.4 trillion was Nancy Pelosi's House budget.

.

This (my) chart shows actual government numbers and a key milestone (PELOSI AND REID).

You see, I got off my ass and did my homework obtaining government numbers and asked myself which party held the majority in which house and when; then created my own graph based on facts. The trend line was added for people too stupid to understand a bar chart.

[Noob1999]

.......................Read the fine print on the chart. This is based upon budget, not actual figures..................

If that’s true, the chart should stop in 2007, as Pelosi’s house never came up with a budget.

Also, are these stats based on Sept. fiscal years or calendar years. Could make a huge difference.

Thirdly, is TARP included in the expenditures (I believe it is) which was a loan program jammed down Bush’s throat by a veto-proof congress???

Chris Matthews is impressed by the charts - he’s getting wet tingles; and I’m sure that Krugman has passed them around his classroom to teach all his little mush-heads.

[the_Watchman]

Your charts show the CBO figures. Here is a conservative analysis which claims that the CBO numbers are ‘cooked’. http://www.craigsteiner.us/articles/32

The liberals like to claim that Clinton ran a surplus, but it doesn’t work out if one disallows the trick of not counting federal debt which is self-funded.

On the other hand, many on this thread claim that spending by Bush did not get out of hand until the Democrats controlled Congress. The figures from CBO and Craig Steiner’s web site do not support this notion. Craig’s numbers show that the deficit under Bush jumped up immediately which probably was due to the war with Iraq.

It is important to note that the bubble at the end of the Bush years was due to Tarp which was negotiated by Obama’s incoming administration. (I will never understand why Bush allowed this. I guess he bought into the idea that the problem was a true calamity and not just a chance to raid the treasury to pay off Wall Street.)

[Cobra64]

Furthermore, if big numbers make you dizzy, try this:

[mc5cents]

From Dave Johnson's Bio: More recently he helped co-found a company developing desktop systems to validate carbon trading in the US.

An Al Gore acolyte I see.

[I see my hands]

Yeah, you don't know. The bald faced lie is so handy isn't it?

[ozarkgirl]

Too cool folks, I knew I’d get facts from you. I might have to post the facts below as well (if I’m not already unfriended).

I wrote: Notice the huge increase in 2008 (when the dems took over Congress). For all those who aren’t up on these things, Pres doesn’t control spending, Congress does. Too bad Pres. Obama didn’t close Gitmo or get out of Irag like he promised, save a ton of money there!

[TwelveOfTwenty]

Don't forget that Clinton's balanced budget was due in large part to the fact that he didn't have to budget for the Cold War. Reagan/Bush eliminated that burden from our economy.

During the Clinton years, our economy was stimulated with the advent of Ecommerce and Y2K, creating plenty of jobs and tax payers. Y2K itself was a 300 billion dollar stimulus. Neither had anything to do with anything Clinton did.

And while Clinton may have left a balanced budget, his leadership failure also left the WOT for his successor to deal with. I post the search of all results, rather than just those who support my point of view, so that anyone who wants to review this can get both sides and decide for themselves. IMHO, just the quotes from Clinton in the links that defend him are enough to prove his "guilt".

Bootless, thanks for the ping.

[denydenydeny]

Love how he puts "Obama deficits" in quotes as if they weren't real.

2008: Obama calls deficits "unpatriotic"

[KDD]

Off Budget Wars and musical chairs.

Whoever got the seat when the music stopped in 08 was going to have those billions of dollars of debt saddled to em.

Both parties are to blame.

[DuncanWaring]

The first lie is the “$128 billion Clinton surplus”.

There hasn’t been a “surplus”, a fiscal year in which the National Debt actually decreased, since the Eisenhower administration.

[DuncanWaring]

Nope, Clinton never “balanced the budget”.

Came within $25 billion one year, but never actually balanced.