Posted on 07/30/2011 4:49:40 PM PDT by Para-Ord.45
Ezra Klein recently posted a New York Times graphic supporting his view that the deficit is primarily the fault of former President Bush and his predecessors, rather than President Obama. Interestingly, he makes no attempt to claim that Obama’s policies have reduced the deficit, just that Obama’s deficit increases were smaller than Bush’s.
Leave aside for a moment the fact that Bush’s entire eight-year record is being compared to policies enacted during Obama’s first two and a half years. The fundamental flaw in the New York Times graphic is that it assumes that a president’s fiscal policy is confined to “new” policies enacted under his watch. Every year, the president proposes a budget that contains a mix of new policies and old policies. The result is a comprehensive vision of what federal tax and spending policy ought to be. A president who simply continues the fiscal policy he inherits must bear his share of responsibility for its consequences.
A prime example of this is the “Bush tax cuts,” which the New York Times graphic charges solely to President Bush, conveniently ignoring the fact that President Obama supports making most of the cuts permanent and signed into law a two-year extension of all of them. President Bush also signed a new Medicare drug benefit into law. But President Obama didn’t repeal this new spending, he expanded it.
Below is a graphic that focuses on the results of fiscal policy, not simply on adjustments made on the margins of fiscal policy. If anything, the analysis is overly generous to President Obama because: (1) it assigns full responsibility for Fiscal Year 2009 to President Bush, despite the enactment by Obama of the stimulus, higher domestic appropriations and an expansion of TARP spending during that year; and (2) it gives Obama credit for the policies he intends to enact for the rest of his presidency, since we cannot judge his actual future record. The graphic compares the records of these two presidents based on the deficits, revenues and spending incurred by the federal government on their watch, expressed as a percentage of GDP.
The results show one surprise — thanks in part to the recession and tax stimulus measures which have temporarily lowered federal revenues, Bush and Obama tax policies yield virtually the same amount of revenues on average. But the real story is the comparison of spending. Obama’s policies result in historically high spending as a share of the economy, which in turn results in historically high deficits.
To President Obama’s credit, he has begun to embrace the need for a change in direction, though he was dragged there kicking and screaming by Republicans and continues to insist that significant spending cuts be linked to higher taxes. In contrast, Bush’s initiatives were opposed at every turn by congressional Democrats, who insisted on even higher spending.
I’m not sure where that guy was coming from, but the federal deficit under Bush grew from roughly $5.9 trillion to about $9.5 trillion. During 2008 TARP was passed ($700 billion dollars) and in early 2009 Bush went back to Congress for another $300 billion so Obama could hit the ground running.
The figures for Obama in his first year may reflect part of that due to the nature of the fiscal year breakdown.
The point is that Bush was no saint when it came to spending, despite the fact that Obama’s spending tends to make him look like more of one. Obama is spending at an astounding rate.
My debt accumulation figures under Bush above were rough estimates, but when I studied this a year or more ago, the national debt increased in the neighborhood of 92% under Bush.
There is a more updated chart, if you click the link in the article, as the one you sent gives it as of the CBO estimated Obamacare vs Bush. I, for some reason, could not copy the other one. Thanks for this one, though.
Of course the bigger point is at the point the nation is having a permenant recession and a collapse coupled with the impending sword of off-budget unfunded Entitlement liability coming to a head, and the citizens want the spending to stop, it matters not which functionaries spent it. It only matters how we can force the minions to stop it and that is by fear for their jobs — all of them.
Comparison of nObama’s first year and current year
U.S. Federal Government Spending Comparison, 2008 and 2011
Figures given in billions of U.S. Dollars
Category_______ FY 2008 FY 2011 INC/(DEC) INC/(DEC) %
Pensions_______ 659.8_____793.2_____133.4____20.22%
Healthcare_____ 671.4_____882.0_____210.6____31.37%
Education______ 101.8_____129.8______28.0____27.50%
Defense________ 729.6_____964.8_____235.2____32.24%
Welfare________ 322.3_____495.6_____173.3____53.77%
Protection_____ 47.1_______60.7_______13.6____28.87%
Transportation_ 77.6_______94.5_______16.9____21.78%
General________ 20.8_______33.2_______12.4____59.62%
Other__________ 99.3______158.4______59.1____59.52%
Interest_______ 252.8_____206.7_____-46.1____-18.24%
Total__________ 2,982.5____3,818.9____836.4____28.04%
U.S. Federal Government Revenue Comparison, 2008 and 2011
Figures given in billions of U.S. Dollars
Category_______________ FY 2008 FY 2011 INC/(DEC) INC/(DEC) %
Ind. Inc. Tax___________1,145.8__956.0___-189.8_____-16.56%
Corp. Inc. Tax___________304.3____198.4___-105.9___-34.80%
Social Ins. Taxes________900.2____806.8____-93.4____-10.38%
Ad-valorem Taxes_______140.1____132.9_____-7.2___-5.14%
Fees & Charges___________0.0________0.0_____0.0
Bus & Other Rev__________33.6_____79.5_____45.9___136.61%
Total___________________2,524.0___2,173.6___-350.4____-13.88%
Surplus/(Deficit)________-458.5__-1645.3__-1,186.8____258.84%
Sorry, you’re wrong. Please see who signed the FY2009 appropriations bill - President Obama. In fact, the FY2009 appropriations bill wasn’t passed in the Pelosi-led House or the Reid-led Senate until after President Obama was sworn in to office.
FY2009 is entirely on the shoulders of Pelosi, Reid, and Obama - President Bush had nothing to do with it.
Well I’m not able to agree with that in total, although I do see parts I agree with. To my way of thinking it is important to keep our heads about us when our folks are in office, WE MUST hold their feet to the fire. We fell down big-time on our duty under Bush.
We should have been screaming bloody murder from the hilltops.
As bad as Bush was, Obama is outspending him two to one.
Not spending us into debt is much better than having to pay that debt off.
I guess my point is that while arguements that Bush spent nearly as poorly as Obama are false by any honest accounting, it becomes just a battle of claims about Bush.
Any voter needs to be asked if the Federal government in general making our children tax slaves is the course they want for the country.
Be careful there. Bush pushed through TARP ($770 trillion / roughly September) in 2008. He could’t have only had a $450 billion deficit that year.
http://blog.heritage.org/2009/03/24/bush-deficit-vs-obama-deficit-in-pictures/
http://blog.heritage.org/2011/07/28/the-truth-about-obamas-budget-deficits-in-pictures/
Obama by the end of this year or early next year, will probably have already increased the debt as much as Bush did, so I’ll grant you that Bush was a piker (spender) by Obama’s standards.
None the less, any president that close to doubles (92%) the national debt accumulated in our nation’s history at this point in just eight years is a massive problem.
If we refuse to acknowledge that, we refuse to address it as it is taking place. And then we open the door for Democrats to do the same thing inoculated.
The bad thing, IMHO, about TARP wasn't the $25 billion in debt it added; it was the sustaining of inefficient businesses on their deathbed. Those companies - like GM, for example - should have died an ignoble death and allowed others to replace them.
And it doesn't change the fact that FY2009 was written by Pelosi and Reid, and signed into law by President Obama. It's a common leftist/Democrat trick to include all that spending of FY2009 under President Bush - but he never signed the bill, was never given the opportunity to do so (because he promised to veto it). FY2009 was a 100% Democrat bill, and it sits squarely on President Obama's shoulders. Don't accept the lie that President Bush was responsible for FY2009, because the Congressional record proves otherwise.
Noone is defending Bush here, and thanks for your chart.
However, Obama has increased the debt more than 4.5 trillion in THREE YEARS. Bush had two wars, and lots of military spending, including the expenses of 9/11 internally in NYC, Katrina, California Wildfires, and some of the most devastating Hurricanes ever, during his terms.
I know Francis and Ivan cost me a bundle. Gov’t agency FEMA budget was depleted for sure.
Now, Clinton left a surplus, but he also missed the chance to get Osama Bin Laden, when they asked him, and he said “NO”. Think of all the billions that would have been save if he had taken out Bin Laden then. Clinton was more interested in sex, than national security, as he and Hillary went to N. Vietnam to apologize for Vietnam War and lowered our flag to the communist N. Vietnam flag ( our flag never had been subjected to this humilation before).
However Bush did try to get some things like Freddie and Fannie under control, that were refused. Democrats have controlled Congress, since 2006. I have seen the statements on video from Bush and Snow, who made appeals to Congress to get this housing market problem, as far back as 2001, just before 9/11-—Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, and others booed his efforts claiming everything was fine.
I watched a special that showed how the Community Reinvestment Act, that originated with Jimmy Carter, put three Presidents in the prosperity category, until 2006, when the spiral started down. Those investments were AAA rated by the same rating agency’s now going to downgrade America...not that we don’t deserve it, so I am not a ‘head in the sand’ type.
Now your chart may be correct, but WHY we had the spending is just important, as the spending itself. Obama did NOT have to have OBAMACARE, and he did not have to do ‘clunkers for cars”, and right now people with mortgage/job problems can get $12000 a year paid by federal gov’t on their debt.
Million went to abort babies in Africa by Exec Order right after Obama took office, and 900 Million went to Palestinian Hamas families to move to America, and live off our programs. Look at how many billions of taxpayer dollars was sent overseas by Obama, and to South America, etc.
Millions are being supported, who crossed the border Illegally, and I find Obama’s 4.5 trillion in 3 years, when troops are coming home, and winding down...where is the money? The Tarp was wasted for jobs that did not exist, and we need to look at the details, of who got that money...really!
And we have clowns like Al Franken in the Senate, whose election was an Acorn joke, stolen and eventually determined as probably not tallied correctly. Reid should have been defeated, except for the new voting machines that gave him several million votes, after it went down, that weren’t there before.
We have a criminal system, and as for Government paperwork, all the corrections that have had to be made in past couple of years, and that makes me think those in charge aren’t even able, to add 2+2 and get 4.
Thanks for letting me state the obvious...too much BS on Capital Hill, and Dems whining the GOP is going to raid Medicare is hilarious, since they scheduled 500 billion of Medicare to go to Obamacare. Bloodsucking Pariah’s...the whole bunch, except for a few, who really do want to balance the budget. We have duplicates of programs to as many as 25-30 in different agencies, so what do these people do with their time? The gov’t job programs do not work, and this President is still creating more.
I’m so tired of the bull, cause I am not easily dupped, since all these politicians are doing is kicking can down the road.
Congress stole the money out of Social Security trust fund, and left IOU’s, that they cannot pay now. Millions were spent on electronics that could not be used for Census, but were paid for by this Admin anyway...it’s incompetency at it’s worse.
Those things don’t show up in the numbers, but should...for we are being taxed by people who misuse what is given to gov’t, and who are incompetant.
TARP authorized up to $770 billion; by the time President Bush left office just $290 billion had been committed, and ultimately the final cost - after most was paid back - was around $25 billion. The CBO score was a 'worst case' - and remember, the CBO is the same group that said Obamacare would save trillions of dollars from the deficit!
TARP was a bad bill because it allowed dying companies to live - companies that SHOULD have died and made way for new, more efficient companies and healthier competitors. It was an attack on the free market process, not really a big addition to the deficit in the long run (about $25 billion added to the debt overall).
Thanks, and read my comment#36 to another poster.
Don't fall for that Democrat lie! President Clinton NEVER had a surplus. The national debt increased EVERY YEAR under President Clinton. In fact, the last time the national debt decreased - meaning a REAL surplus - was under President Eisenhower in 1957.
Clinton never "gave us" a surplus - it never existed. Don't let the Democrats legitimize that lie!
Budgets do not come from the White House. They come from Congress and the party that controlled Congress since January 2007 is the Democratic Party.
Furthermore, the Democrats controlled the budget process for FY 2008 and FY 2009 as well as FY 2010 and FY 2011.
In that first year, they had to contend with George Bush, which caused them to compromise on spending, when Bush somewhat belatedly got tough on spending increases.
For FY 2009 though, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid bypassed George Bush entirely, passing continuing resolutions to keep government running until Barack Obama could take office. At that time, they passed a massive omnibus spending bill to complete the FY 2009 budgets.
And where was Barack Obama during this time? He was a member of that very Congress that passed all of these massive spending bills, and he signed the omnibus bill as President to complete FY 2009. Let’s remember what the deficits looked like during that period: (below)
If the Democrats inherited any deficit, it was the FY 2007 deficit, the last of the Republican budgets. That deficit was the lowest in five years, and the fourth straight decline in deficit spending. After that, Democrats in Congress took control of spending, and that includes Barack Obama, who voted for the budgets.
If Obama inherited anything, he inherited it from himself.
In a nutshell, what Obama is saying is I inherited a deficit that I voted for and then I voted to expand that deficit four-fold since January 20th.
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