Obama spending binge never happened (Barf Alert?)

Wall Street Journal--MarketWatch ^ | 5/22/2012 | Rex Nutting

[needmorePaine]

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — Of all the falsehoods told about President Barack Obama, the biggest whopper is the one about his reckless spending spree.

As would-be president Mitt Romney tells it: “I will lead us out of this debt and spending inferno.”

Almost everyone believes that Obama has presided over a massive increase in federal spending, an “inferno” of spending that threatens our jobs, our businesses and our children’s future. Even Democrats seem to think it’s true.

But it didn’t happen. Although there was a big stimulus bill under Obama, federal spending is rising at the slowest pace since Dwight Eisenhower brought the Korean War to an end in the 1950s.

Even hapless Herbert Hoover managed to increase spending more than Obama has.

[JohnC2004]

Math games.

If I go from 100 to 200, my total increase is 100 and my % increase (or rate of increase) is 100%. If I then go from 200 to 310, my total increase is 110 but my % increase is 55%.

The larger and larger the sample size gets (debt), the smaller and smaller the % increase can be while still increasing ever larger.

[Tex-Con-Man]

The left always uses the “president's spending” angle to make their case while completely ignoring who was in charge of the purse during the large spending sprees. Reagan was a big spender (Dem congress) and Clinton balanced the budget (Republican congress).

When one looks at the Pelosi congress (last 2 years of Bush), you see a huge spike in spending, so that the increase when Obama took office wasn't as high as it was under Bush's last 2 years.

[Norseman]

Three points:

1) As others have said, the Democrats took control of Congress in Jan 2007 and set the budgets for the fiscal year 2007/08 , 08/09, 09/10 and 10/11 (Republicans regained the House in Jan 2011 and had influence on the 2011/12 budget cycle. (That said, Bush could have done more vetoing on his watch, but didn’t.)

2) The Senate hasn’t passed a budget for three years for a very good reason. Any responsible budget would see a dramatic drop from the current level of spending, which was inflated by the 2009 stimulus bill. Once the budget reached that inflated level, they’ve maintained it with Continuing Resolutions, hence, no budget bill out of the Senate, even though required by law.

3) The proper way to measure government spending is by relating it to the size of the economy. I don’t have exact percentages, but I believe Bush’s spending was on the order of 20-21% of GDP, and Obama’s is on the order of 24-25% of GDP. (And, clearly, the Dems want to spend even more.)

[Norseman]

Three points:

1) As others have said, the Democrats took control of Congress in Jan 2007 and set the budgets for the fiscal year 2007/08 , 08/09, 09/10 and 10/11 (Republicans regained the House in Jan 2011 and had influence on the 2011/12 budget cycle. (That said, Bush could have done more vetoing on his watch, but didn’t.)

2) The Senate hasn’t passed a budget for three years for a very good reason. Any responsible budget would see a dramatic drop from the current level of spending, which was inflated by the 2009 stimulus bill. Once the budget reached that inflated level, they’ve maintained it with Continuing Resolutions, hence, no budget bill out of the Senate, even though required by law.

3) The proper way to measure government spending is by relating it to the size of the economy. I don’t have exact percentages, but I believe Bush’s spending was on the order of 20-21% of GDP, and Obama’s is on the order of 24-25% of GDP. (And, clearly, the Dems want to spend even more.)

[Noob1999]

..................I think the big fy 2009 jump was due to TARP..................

Technically TARP was not spending, it was loaned money.

So the author places TARP in the 2009 spending, and I’ll bet he included the repayments during Zer0’s years as negative spending

[TheOldLady]

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[RedCell]

I’m already getting emails with the chart.

[rogue yam]

Can you post the link for those figures please?

I’d like to use them (and also get the figures for 2001 - 2004).

Thanks.

[SomeCallMeTim]

I’m already getting emails with the chart.

Oh... I don't doubt it. I know several libs that I'm SURE will be sending it to me.. I think, the simplest, best answer... is exactly what was posted in #5 on this thread.