Slowest Growth in Spending under Obama

[_Kevin Graham]

In other words, Kessler disagrees with what CATO argues. From what I've seen, how much of FY 2009 Obama was responsible for can be argued several different ways.

Yes, he has a different opinion, but he didn't really justify it with evidence. He just kinda asserts that Obama was more responsible for the 2009 budget than he really was. On the other hand, why in the world would CATO come to the defense of Obama on this point unless it was based on solid evidence? CATO has been anything but friendly towards the Obama administration.

I don't agree that this is "beside the point." You're complaining about Republicans pushing a false narrative of Obama as a "socialist spending freak," yet you're responding to it by promoting another false narrative to the tune of "Obama: the greatest fiscal conservative since Eisenhower." My reason for posting in this thread was to let you know that Nutting's analysis is not a reliable one, and that's by the reckoning of several sources that are far from Fox-News-GOP-sympathizers.

But it is only a false narrative if we attribute 2009 to Obama, which I think is already a moot point.

We don't. The complaint is that the spike in 2009 was supposed to be a temporary measure to deal with the recession

A measure initiated by conservatives running the Treasury Dept in 2008.

and instead it has been used as a justification to keep spending at that level

But that isn't the justification at all because it simply isn't what's happening. You make it sound like we're still handing out $750 billion in bailouts every year since 2009. I've already shown that most of the increased spending is mandatory, and completely out of Obama's hands. He couldn't stop it if he wanted to.

It's not that Obama has accelerated spending since 2009; it's that it was sped up to that level and then kept there

In what way? What specific things are being spent 2010-2012, and then justified by TARP?

The other reason for the flattening is that Congress has refused to grant Obama as much as he has requested for the budget for the last three years. It cut .21 trillion from his budget in 2010, .2 trillion in 2011, and .06 trillion in 2012.

You're talking about just a fraction really when the budget is requesting more than $3 trillion. The initial argument and comparison to Eisenhower wasn't based on proposed budgets, but this is the normal process. No President gets what he asks for, nor do they expect to. Reagan frequently asked for much more funding than what was appropriated to him by Congress.

I'm not someone who has called Obama a tax-and-spend socialist, and for the most part, economics is pretty over my head. I'd say "It's Greek to me," but I understand Greek far better than I do economics. It's a polemical topic and I feel like it's been very difficult to get a straight answer from either side on how much Obama has or has not increased spending and what he could control.

Agreed.

However, when even the Washington Post and the AP are calling "bull[poop]" on a pro-Obama article, something strange is happening in the town of Stepford.

Well, Kessler has been criticized from both sides as a journalist just looking to stir the pot. Ultimately, he hasn't really presented much to support his opinion that the necessary spending frenzy that took place in 2009, was Obama's fault. And it is equally strange that a Rupert Murdoch owned WSJ would publish a colum arguing that Obama's spending is relatively low compared to previous presidents.

Or, nobody who spent eight years whining about Bush's massive expenditures has any right to defend the current administration. Take your pick.

Why not? Obama spent money to save the country's economy from a depression. I think that is a pretty good reason, as it is what got us out of the depression of the 1920's. He also invested in the American autoworkers, and ended up saving our auto industry. That same industry Romney said he would have let go bankrupt. By contrast, Bush spent wasted a surplus because it is the conservative philosophy that "deficits don't matter." Our deficit exploded under Reagan, and continued until Clinton. We enjoyed a surplus for a couple of years until Bush Jr was elected, and he blew it on a war based on a lie. That war has continued to justify massive military spending for more than a decade now.

[_Kevin Graham]

This simple image refutes everything bcspace just said.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:US_Fe ... sident.jpg

Notice the consistent nosedive in the deficit during the blue years and the consistent spike during the red years.

And then there is this one:



The total national debt under George Bush II tops out at $10.6 trillion (not shown on this graph) nearly doubling from the $5.6 trillion that it stood at when he initially took office.

[_ajax18]

Likewise, if you support war, you should be willing to pay for it with higher taxes, instead of pretending that we can have massive war spending and big tax cuts at the same time.

Yes wars cost money and I have no choice but to be willing to pay for that war. If I want a place to go to work that isn't a wide open target to suicide plane hijackers than I have to pay the price for it, even with my own life. What else could I do, just use an atom bomb to kill every man, woman, and child who might be plotting "death to America." It'd certainly be cheaper.

But I don't think I should have to work to pay for people who don't want to work. I don't think I should have to pay for Desmond Hatchett to sire 30 children with eleven different women when I can barely afford to sire any myself. That's what conservatives are saying.

What I do want, besides a solid Social Security system, is real national health care, and I want all our taxes raised to pay for it.

A weak military that can't help you protect your home, life, or property doesn't seem very secure to me. You social security check won't do you any good if others who are enivious that you have it come and take it from you or kill your for it.

[_bcspace]

This simple image refutes everything bcspace just said.

Read it and weep:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:US_Public_Debt_Ceiling_1981-2010.png

Don't forget to check out the reference which is the US government itself.

[_richardMdBorn]

I'd like to make a couple of points here. I haven't read every word of the thread so perhaps someone else has made parts of these points. First, the government deficit is computed on a cash basis. The deficit is cash in cash out in for a calendar period. This can distort the numbers (private companies use GAAP). TARP differed from most government programs in that some of the money will be returned to the Treasury. Many banks did not want or need the TARP money; these banks are likely to repay all of the TARP money they received. Thus, including all the TARP in the 08-09 deficit distorts the numbers.

Take an example of an family. Their budget is computed using on a cash basis.
Year 1 Income $50 Cash out $45K savings $5K
Year 2 Income $50 Cash out $45K savings $5K
Year 3 Income $50 Cash out $145K deficit $95K
Year 4 Income $50 Cash out $45K savings $5K

What happened in year 3? They bought a house for $100K. The additional asset is not adjusted for on a cash basis. A similar distortion occurs when the 08-09 is treated as if it is a normal year.

[_Droopy]

Unless one knows how a chart, graph, or statistical representation of any kind was constructed, upon what assumption, using what data, or portions of data, in what manner, and from what source, such graphical representations may look very nice, and they have that wonderful "scientific" appearance that implies empirical rigor, but in the end are nothing more than tools of propaganda.

That's why people like Kevin Graham like to use them so much, and shy away from substantive discussion of theory, history, and logical imperative.

Everyone knows the empirical facts here. In less than four years, Obama tripled the rate of national debt creation, moving from a 10 trillion dollar debt that took A democratic congress in the 90s and George Bush nearly 20 years to rack up to nearly 16 trillion today, with near trillion dollar deficits projected, year in, year out, over the next decade, and over 12 trillion of new spending earmarked over the same period (while Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security are set to collapse entirely beginning in the middle of the next decade).

Here's the reality, for those who love charts and graphs:

http://www.heritage.org/federalbudget/c ... ts-196.jpg

The reality is that federal deficits and total national debt went into orbit only after Bush had long been out of office. As bad as Bush and the wild-spending Republican congress had been, Obama took hold of what Bush had already done, with a filibuster-immune congressional and senate majorities, and went on an unprecedented orgy of spending, borrowing, and tax raising.

http://www.heritage.org/federalbudget/c ... ts-196.jpg

http://www.heritage.org/federalbudget/c ... bt-196.jpg

Is Bush partly to blame? Of course he is. No one has ever argued otherwise. However, Barack Obama, following the classic Cloward/Piven/Alinsky strategy of collapsing the capitalist system by overwhelming and destroying its national solvency and financial institutions, public and private, has engaged in orgiastic spending and debt creation that everyone in their right mind and who has the slightest understanding of basic economics is unsustainable and will lead to catastrophic economic collapse if not brought under control:

http://www.heritage.org/federalbudget/c ... bt-196.jpg

Even CBS News, one of the de facto journalistic wings of the Democratic party, has the basic decency to tell the truth on occasion, shaming the Trailerpark in the process:

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162- ... nder-bush/

Notice this statement, and keep in mind this is coming from CBS News:

If Mr. Obama wins re-election, and his budget projections prove accurate, the National Debt will top $20 trillion in 2016, the final year of his second term. That would mean the Debt increased by 87 percent, or $9.34 trillion, during his two terms.

Heritage, Hoover, Cato, or the Von Mises Institute couldn't have said it better. But then, how difficult is it to simply state facts in an honest, forthright manner?