The Most Frugal President over the Past 50 Years Is…Obama?!?

Townhall.com ^ | May 23, 2014 | Daniel J. Mitchell

[DannyTN]

"Did this mean Obama moved to the right?"

Can you say sequester?

I still find this hard to believe because of the stimulus plan that was put in place Obama's first year and then baked into the budget in subsequent years.

Also Bush kept the war on terror costs separate from the budget with the expectation that they would go away when the war was over. Obama merged them into the budget so that they could keep spending at that level unquestioned.

[cripplecreek]

Obama has cost America an incredible amount in the form of lost wealth.

[molson209]

crunched budget numbers ? Obama has only had like 1 budget so far

[Cubs Fan]

Absurd, the deficit has grown to nearly a trillion every year. This article is a joke.

[dontreadthis]

the mathematica; priciple is simple: redistribution is not spending

[DannyTN]

I think I see the problem. I think the guy is averaging annual increases, and excluding the first year on the theory that the budget for that year wasn't developed under that president. Obama's massive increase was in his first year. Thanks to the stimulus plan and rolling the war costs into the budget.

[LegendHasIt]

"Absurd, the deficit has grown to nearly a trillion every year. This article is a joke.

Of course it is... But that won't stop the leftists from using it as a bludgeon in any arguments about how wonderful their messiah has been for the USA.

[BitWielder1]

If you torture numbers you can make them say anything - and these ones are screaming for help.

[Jack Hydrazine]

Bush started with the national debt at $5.9 trillion and end it at $10.7 trillion.

Obama started with that $10.7 trillion and is currently around $17.5 trillion.

In 2012 the national debt exceeded 100% of the US GDP.

[fhayek]

Obama has been the biggest spender in history. The fact that you can make a case for him being a fiscal conservative speaks ill of statisticians.

[kingattax]

budget ? what budget ?

[LegendHasIt]

And they say “Figures don’t lie.”.

Whoever said that must have been a liar.

[Still Thinking]

It turns out that Obama supposed frugality is largely the result of how TARP is measured in the federal budget. To put it simply, TARP pushed spending up in Bush’s final fiscal year (FY2009, which began October 1, 2008) and then repayments from the banks (which count as “negative spending”) artificially reduced spending in subsequent years.

That was the first question that popped into my mind when I read this obvious absurdity: "Did they blame TARP on Bush?" (not that he was faultless in it, not at all). Obviously no POTUS that runs trillion dollar deficits could possibly be even one of the most frugal. The other thing they should correct for is GDP. If GDP increases 6%, and spending is up 2%, that's actually less damning than if GDP is DOWN 1% yet spending is up 1.5%.

[Still Thinking]

You know what they say....Liars, DAMN liars, and statisticians!

[AlexW]

Note the famous phrase concerning statistics:
There are lies, damned lies, and statistics.

[usconservative]

Obama ... "most frugal?"

BULLSHIT.

He's DOUBLED the National Debt by himself. Tell me again how "frugal" the hnic is.

[usconservative]

Bush started with the national debt at $5.9 trillion and end it at $10.7 trillion.

Where'd you get those figures? I had seen the national debt at 7.2T when Bush took office and around 9.5T when he left. (Don't remember where I saw that...)

[Jack Hydrazine]

http://useconomy.about.com/gi/o.htm?zi=1/XJ&zTi=1&sdn=useconomy&cdn=newsissues&tm=7&f=10&su=p284.13.342.ip_&tt=65&bt=3&bts=3&zu=http%3A//www.skymachines.com/US-National-Debt-Per-Capita-Percent-of-GDP-and-by-Presidental-Term.htm

[usconservative]

Yikes! Looking at those tables, Clinton was the most financially conservative .... actually drove down spending as a % of GDP (thanks to a truly Conservative Congress, at least at the time)