Slowest Growth in Spending under Obama

[_Kevin Graham]

Despite Being Warned, Right-Wing Media Buy Into The "BS" Claims About Obama's Spending Record

How does this bode with the oft repeated claim that he is a tax and spend fanatic who is a socialist at heart? The facts are devastating to Right Wing mantra, or at least, to those on the Right who actually give a damn about what's actually true.

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney told reporters not to buy into the "BS" of GOP-driven tax and spending claims and pointed to a Wall Street Journal MarketWatch column that noted that government spending is rising at its slowest pace since the 1950s. Far from heeding that advice, right-wing media figures relied on misleading economic talking points to attack Carney.

WSJ's MarketWatch: Federal Spending Under Obama Has Increased At The Lowest Rate Since The 1950's. Federal Spending Growth Is Lower Than It Was Under Reagan, Clinton, And Both Bushes. Carney pointed to a May 22 column in The Wall Street Journal's MarketWatch headlined "Obama spending binge never happened." From a chart accompanying the column:





Lou Dobbs on Fox News acknowledges these facts but then changed the argument by saying Obama has increased the debt more than any other President. Fox's Varney: "Obama Has Run Up The Debt A Great Deal More Than President Bush Did In His Full 8 Years." This is also a lie.

Wash. Post's Klein: Bush Policies Responsible For Vast Majority Of Debt Increase Under Obama Administration. In a January 31 Washington Post column, Ezra Klein estimated that Obama's policies are responsible for $983 billion of the nearly $5 trillion increase in public debt over the course of his administration, while the remainder of the debt increase is attributable to Bush-era policies. From The Washington Post:

[I]f you're a deficit-obsessed voter, the clock doesn't answer the key question: How much has Obama added to the debt, anyway?

There are two answers: more than $4 trillion, or about $983 billion. The first answer is simple and wrong. The second answer is more complicated but a lot closer to being right.

When Obama took office, the national debt was about $10.5 trillion. Today, it's about $15.2 trillion. Simple subtraction gets you the answer preferred by most of Obama's opponents: $4.7 trillion.

But ask yourself: Which of Obama's policies added $4.7 trillion to the debt? The stimulus? That was just a bit more than $800 billion. TARP? That passed under George W. Bush, and most of it has been repaid.

There is a way to tally the effects Obama has had on the deficit. Look at every piece of legislation he has signed into law. Every time Congress passes a bill, either the Congressional Budget Office or the Joint Committee on Taxation estimates the effect it will have on the budget over the next 10 years. And then they continue to estimate changes to those bills. If you know how to read their numbers, you can come up with an estimate that zeros in on the laws Obama has had a hand in.

A chart accompanying the column made in conjunction with the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) illustrated the debt impact of Bush's policies versus Obama's:



CBPP: "[V]irtually The Entire Deficit Over The Next Ten Years" Due To Bush Policies, Economic Downturn." CBPP published an analysis of federal deficits in December 2009, which was most recently updated on June 28, 2010, titled, "Critics Still Wrong on What's Driving Deficits in Coming Years: Economic Downturn, Financial Rescues, and Bush-Era Policies Drive the Numbers." The report noted:

Some critics continue to assert that President George W. Bush's policies bear little responsibility for the deficits the nation faces over the coming decade -- that, instead, the new policies of President Barack Obama and the 111th Congress are to blame. Most recently, a Heritage Foundation paper downplayed the role of Bush-era policies (for more on that paper, see p. 4). Nevertheless, the fact remains: Together with the economic downturn, the Bush tax cuts and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq explain virtually the entire deficit over the next ten years.

The report also graphed the effects of Bush's policies and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan on the deficit. From the report:

[_MsJack]

I'm no expert on economics, but The Washington Post's Glenn Kessler gave Jay Carney three Pinnochios for his claims, finding several problems with Nutting's analysis.

The Associated Press found Nutting's analysis problematic as well.

[_EAllusion]

Yeah, this has been going around and is misleading. The Obama administration has been keeping around during an artificially inflated spending rate due to the economic collapse it inherited despite it being out of line with receipts. TARP and the Freddie/Fannie takeover was supposed to be a one-time spike, not a new baseline for spending. The effect is massive deficit spending. Further, the administration is responsible for more than the analysis implies. It also credits the Obama administration for cuts in the future that are politically unlikely to occur and Obama is fighting against.

Taking this into account and spending has been drastically outpacing real economic growth. The net effect is an increasing portion of the economy is wrapped up in the federal budget and consequently borrowed.

http://reason.com/blog/2012/05/23/the-o ... ding-binge

[_EAllusion]

Can you imagine when TARP had an actual chance of not being passed if its supporters said that the expenditure would be rhetorically used to justify a TARP-sized expenditure every following year? I'm thinking it wouldn't have passed.

[_Kevin Graham]

I'm no expert on economics, but The Washington Post's Glenn Kessler gave Jay Carney three Pinnochios for his claims, finding several problems with Nutting's analysis.

The Associated Press found Nutting's analysis problematic as well.

From the link you provided:

Nutting basically takes much of 2009 out of Obama’s column, saying it was the “the last [year] of George W. Bush’s presidency.” Of course, with the recession crashing down, that’s when federal spending ramped up. The federal fiscal year starts on Oct. 1, so the 2009 fiscal year accounts for about four months of Bush’s presidency and eight of Obama’s.

This is all wrong for the simple reason that the fiscal year begins October 1 the year before. As even the CATO institute had to admit, Obama cannot be blamed for the $1.4 trillion deficit of 2009:

But there is one rather important detail that makes a big difference. The chart is based on the assumption that the current administration should be blamed for the 2009 fiscal year. While this makes sense to a casual observer, it is largely untrue. The 2009 fiscal year began October 1, 2008, nearly four months before Obama took office. The budget for the entire fiscal year was largely set in place while Bush was in the White House. So is we update the chart to show the Bush fiscal years in green, we can see that Obama is partly right in claiming that he inherited a mess (though Obama actually deserves a small share of the blame for Bush’s last deficit since earlier this year he pushed through both an “omnibus” spending bill and the so-called stimulus bill that increased FY2009 spending).

But even if Obama's rate of spending isn't the slowest since Eisenhower, this is really beside the point. The point, I think, is that Obama isn't the socialist spending freak he is made out to be in the media. How do we ignore the fact the graph clearly shows spending flattening out after the stimulus?

Even more problematic for the Republicans is the fact that most of federal spending is mandatory, meaning Obama has no real control over it. Mandatory spending has been skyrocketing over the past decade and was set in motion by his predecessors. At best, he can suggest reductions in discretionary spending, but roughly half of that goes to defense spending which the Republicans would never allow him to cut anyway. And the Republicans have no answers about what they would cut either. All they know is that there is a democrat in office who can take the fall, so long as they are able to convince Americans who struggle with short term memory, that he is the guy who caused our economic calamity.

Just to give you some idea how mandatory spending has increased every year, here is what we spent on Social Security the last eight years based on Federal Budgets of these years:

2006- $544 billion
2007- $586 billion
2008- $608 billion
2009- $644 billion
2010- $695 billion
2011- $738 billion
2012- $778 billion
2013- $871 billion

So what else is mandatory spending. How about unemployment benefits/welfare:

2006- $359 billion
2007- $294 billion
2008- $324 billion
2009- $360 billion
2010- $571 billion
2011- $567 billion
2012- $579 billion
2013- $654 billion

And don't forget about our ridiculous health care system where costs skyrocket every year. Medicare/Medicaid was roughly $600 billion in 2006 but has since jumped to well over $900 billion for 2013. And don't forget about the $200+ billion we are forced to pay in interest on our debt, thanks to Reagan and Bush whose philosophy was "deficits don't matter"!

This is why I always ask for specifics when "conservatives" tell me Obama's spending frenzy has caused the deficit we have today. Oh really? Do tell.

The fact that Obama's managed to slow down the rate of spending over the past few years, given rampant increase in mandatory spending, is something that needs explanation before we call him a tax and spend socialist.

[_Drifting]

I'm sure bcspace will be able to demonstrate the fallicy within Kevin G's numbers...

bcspace...?

[_krose]

I'm no expert on economics, but The Washington Post's Glenn Kessler gave Jay Carney three Pinnochios for his claims, finding several problems with Nutting's analysis.

The Associated Press found Nutting's analysis problematic as well.

Time periods are really meaningless. The important question that must be answered is which new Obama policies added to spending increases, rather than continuations of existing spending.

But really, nobody who supported the spending black hole of two unfunded wars has any right to complain about government spending.

[_MsJack]

From the link you provided:

Nutting basically takes much of 2009 out of Obama’s column, saying it was the “the last [year] of George W. Bush’s presidency.” Of course, with the recession crashing down, that’s when federal spending ramped up. The federal fiscal year starts on Oct. 1, so the 2009 fiscal year accounts for about four months of Bush’s presidency and eight of Obama’s.

This is all wrong for the simple reason that the fiscal year begins October 1 the year before. As even the CATO institute had to admit, Obama cannot be blamed for the $1.4 trillion deficit of 2009:

Except that the very next paragraph of the article goes on to say:

In theory, one could claim that the budget was already locked in when Obama took office, but that’s not really the case. Most of the appropriations bills had not been passed, and certainly the stimulus bill was only signed into law after Obama took office.

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.

But even if Obama's rate of spending isn't the slowest since Eisenhower, this is really beside the point. The point, I think, is that Obama isn't the socialist spending freak he is made out to be in the media.

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.

How do we ignore the fact the graph clearly shows spending flattening out after the stimulus?

We don't. The complaint is that the spike in 2009 was supposed to be a temporary measure to deal with the recession, and instead it has been used as a justification to keep spending at that level. It's not that Obama has accelerated spending since 2009; it's that it was sped up to that level and then kept there. Which is why his supporters are so eager to say that very little of the spike was his fault, while his opponents want to credit as much of it to him as possible.

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.

All they know is that there is a democrat in office who can take the fall, so long as they are able to convince Americans who struggle with short term memory, that he is the guy who caused our economic calamity.

Well, I'm not sure what you were expecting. If Democrats taught us anything from 2000-2008, it's that the current sitting president is responsible for every sparrow that falls from the sky.

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.

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.

Time periods are really meaningless.

To whom? Certainly not to Nutting.

The important question that must be answered is which new Obama policies added to spending increases, rather than continuations of existing spending.

I agree. I would really like to know the answer to this question. I would also like to know which programs Obama did such a good job of cutting back funding on since he's the greatest fiscal conservative since Eisenhower.

But really, nobody who supported the spending black hole of two unfunded wars has any right to complain about government spending.

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

[_bcspace]

I'm sure bcspace will be able to demonstrate the fallicy within Kevin G's numbers...

bcspace...?

Nothing KG has said has changed anything I said. Obama, suffering from a poor economy which he and the Democratic controlled Congress (since 2007) exacerbated, has a very poor record on debt as a percentage of GDP. The debt actually flattened out under Clinton because of a Republican controlled Congress and under G.W. Bush only rose slightly despite two wars.

Now the Democrats, as expected (and in control of Congress since 2007 and despite weak Republican efforts to shut down the government to halt spending), have lost control of the deficit again. Since 2007, Congress (with Obama's continued support once elected), raised the debt ceiling from over $9 trillion to over $16 trillion. In other words, since 2007 alone, the Democrats are responsible for nearly half the debt. Prior to that since 1981, Republican controlled Congresses presided over about 2 trillion in debt increase (1 trillion each time). The 87-94 Democrat controlled Congress added another 2.5 trillion. Split Congresses presided over the rest (about 3 trillion).

So, since 1981, the Democrats are directly responsible for 9.5 trillion in debt and 3 trillion more with the Republicans.
The Republicans are directly responsible for 2 trillion and that same 3 trillion with the Democrats.

In other words, the Republicans are far and away more fiscally responsible than Democrats (by 2-1 or 4-1 depending on how you look at it) when in control and admittedly, very weak in opposition when not in power. The only time the budget has been balanced since 1981 was under a Republican controlled Congress.

[_krose]

The important question that must be answered is which new Obama policies added to spending increases, rather than continuations of existing spending.

I agree. I would really like to know the answer to this question. I would also like to know which programs Obama did such a good job of cutting back funding on since he's the greatest fiscal conservative since Eisenhower.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I see this talking point as more of a reaction to the hyperbole streaming from the right ("tidal wave of debt," "unprecedented spending," "socialist," etc.) than an effort to get fiscal conservative votes. I doubt anyone went into the campaign with a plan to paint Obama as a great cutter of budgets. His desire for more stimulus spending has been clear. This was only brought up to counter those ridiculous Republican spending claims. Isn't it fair game to counter outrageous hyperbole with a bit of your own? They certainly haven't been getting any traction with plain facts.

But really, nobody who supported the spending black hole of two unfunded wars has any right to complain about government spending.

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

I didn't notice people on the left criticizing Bush-era spending because it was spending. I did hear plenty of comments about what could have been funded if some of the billions of war money had been diverted to other places that need it. Really, the criticism was more anti-war than anti-spending (well, that and their pretending that it didn't need to be paid for with a wartime tax). We liberals don't mind spending if it goes to the right places. And we are willing to pay for it. 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. That was just plain nuts.

Personally, I never supported either invasion-occupation, and I resent all the debt that has been incurred to pay for them (and of course I am disgusted that Obama has continued one of them -- I won't defend that). 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. The end result would be cheaper for all of us.