Obama spending binge never happened

[teko]

Obama spending binge never happened

Commentary: Government outlays rising at slowest pace since 1950s

By Rex Nutting, MarketWatch

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.


Government spending under Obama, including his signature stimulus bill, is rising at a 1.4% annualized pace — slower than at any time in nearly 60 years.
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.

Here are the facts, according to the official government statistics:

• In the 2009 fiscal year — the last of George W. Bush’s presidency — federal spending rose by 17.9% from $2.98 trillion to $3.52 trillion. Check the official numbers at the Office of Management and Budget.

• In fiscal 2010 — the first budget under Obama — spending fell 1.8% to $3.46 trillion.

• In fiscal 2011, spending rose 4.3% to $3.60 trillion.

• In fiscal 2012, spending is set to rise 0.7% to $3.63 trillion, according to the Congressional Budget Office’s estimate of the budget that was agreed to last August.

• Finally in fiscal 2013 — the final budget of Obama’s term — spending is scheduled to fall 1.3% to $3.58 trillion. Read the CBO’s latest budget outlook.


The big surge in federal spending happened in fiscal 2009, before Obama took office. Since then, spending growth has been relatively flat.
Over Obama’s four budget years, federal spending is on track to rise from $3.52 trillion to $3.58 trillion, an annualized increase of just 0.4%.

There has been no huge increase in spending under the current president, despite what you hear.

Why do people think Obama has spent like a drunken sailor? It’s in part because of a fundamental misunderstanding of the federal budget.

What people forget (or never knew) is that the first year of every presidential term starts with a budget approved by the previous administration and Congress. The president only begins to shape the budget in his second year. It takes time to develop a budget and steer it through Congress — especially in these days of congressional gridlock.

The 2009 fiscal year, which Republicans count as part of Obama’s legacy, began four months before Obama moved into the White House. The major spending decisions in the 2009 fiscal year were made by George W. Bush and the previous Congress.

Like a relief pitcher who comes into the game with the bases loaded, Obama came in with a budget in place that called for spending to increase by hundreds of billions of dollars in response to the worst economic and financial calamity in generations.

By no means did Obama try to reverse that spending. Indeed, his budget proposals called for even more spending in subsequent years. But the Congress (mostly Republicans but many Democrats, too) stopped him. If Obama had been a king who could impose his will, perhaps what the Republicans are saying about an Obama spending binge would be accurate.

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Yet the actual record doesn’t show a reckless increase in spending. Far from it.

Before Obama had even lifted a finger, the CBO was already projecting that the federal deficit would rise to $1.2 trillion in fiscal 2009. The government actually spent less money in 2009 than it was projected to, but the deficit expanded to $1.4 trillion because revenue from taxes fell much further than expected, due to the weak economy and the emergency tax cuts that were part of the stimulus bill.

The projected deficit for the 2010-13 period has grown from an expected $1.7 trillion in January 2009 to $4.4 trillion today. Lower-than-forecast revenue accounts for 73% of the $2.7 trillion increase in the expected deficit. That’s assuming that the Bush and Obama tax cuts are repealed completely.

When Obama took the oath of office, the $789 billion bank bailout had already been approved. Federal spending on unemployment benefits, food stamps and Medicare was already surging to meet the dire unemployment crisis that was well underway. See the CBO’s January 2009 budget outlook.

Obama is not responsible for that increase, though he is responsible (along with the Congress) for about $140 billion in extra spending in the 2009 fiscal year from the stimulus bill, from the expansion of the children’s health-care program and from other appropriations bills passed in the spring of 2009.


If we attribute that $140 billion in stimulus to Obama and not to Bush, we find that spending under Obama grew by about $200 billion over four years, amounting to a 1.4% annualized increase.

After adjusting for inflation, spending under Obama is falling at a 1.4% annual pace — the first decline in real spending since the early 1970s, when Richard Nixon was retreating from the quagmire in Vietnam.

In per capita terms, real spending will drop by nearly 5% from $11,450 per person in 2009 to $10,900 in 2013 (measured in 2009 dollars).

By the way, real government spending rose 12.3% a year in Hoover’s four years. Now there was a guy who knew how to attack a depression by spending government money!

http://www.marketwatch.com/Story/story/print?guid=D3522D2A-A37E-11E1-827E-002128049AD6

Follow the link to look at the graphs

[Barb135]

I'm not deleting anything - yet...... because it's a good article and can be a good discussion.

When you post on the open board, everyone is allowed to respond; you can only carry on a conversation with a single person, so long as everyone else stays out of it.  If you don't want any else to get involved, feel free to have your conversation via PM where no one else can see it.

As the campaign process heats up, opinions are going to become more pronounced and the discussions will get more heated.  Personal attacks are going to be tolerated.

Take the discussion back to the article.  In case anyone's forgotten it's about Obama's alleged spending spree, not about anyone's opinion of him or anyone else - other than, as related to the spending issue.

[el_em_en_oh]

To address the "racism" portion of your comment, as that's the only portion of your response worth replying to:

I am just like Barack Obama... I'm 1/2 black.

My father is white (sort of), and my mother is black.

When I say that my Dad is "sort of" white, I mean that he's Portuguese, Greek, Iranian & Italian. So it's more Mediterranean & Middle-Eastern, but there's no box for that on the forms.

My mother was born and raised in England, to black parents (therefore, she's a black woman). As she was adopted at a very young age, not much is known of her birth parents, other than the fact that they were black.

Call me a racist? Please...  

[el_em_en_oh]

I answered you honestly and directly. I acknowledge President Obama and the office he holds, and have respect for the office of President and the office he currently holds.

However, I then say that I dislike the man and that he disgusts me (I was talking to YOU, mind you, not anyone else... least of all Mike), and Mike resorts to name-calling, and tells me "who cares".

MrsP... I like you and respect you. You asked me a direct question, and I was honest and gave you a direct answer, and I was beaten up because of it.

Tell me... do you agree with what Mike said to me? And please, please tell me you weren't talking to me when you said, "Calm down and lets try and chill out".

I'm completely calm & chill. All I did was answer you directly and honestly, and Mike has taken it upon himself to respond in a child'like manner.

Do you agree with him?

[MrsPincince]

Ok, Ok Everyone calm down...Let's try and chill out!! Let's bring the subject back to the article and look at the facts like Mike said.....PLS don't delete this Barb...

[mikesimon]

I don't care one bit that you dislike President Obama. I couldn't care less.

What troubles me is that you choose to ignore the facts. Federal spending has pretty much been flat during the Obama presidency. I have seen the charts and graphs in many different places and very few of them were what I'd consider politically biased sources. It's about the numbers and that's all it is. When you take the time to read them and understand them then it is clear that Obama has not been the crazy spender that the right would have you believe. He also hasn't raised taxes and instead lowered taxes for most of Americans. Now, I admit he'd have liked to raise taxes on the rich and if you hold that against him that's fine. At least you have an argument - though a losing one in my opinion.

You don't like him? Who cares.

Your subtle racism is not so subtle. You say: "I even respect the fact that he's the first 1/2 black President." That's not even code - that is disgusting and it is clear to me what you really feel.
He disgusts you? You don't like him as a person? You don't know him as a person! Only a crude man would talk like that. I know this post will be deleted but not because it's not true. It will be deleted because we all have to play nice and no one is really permitted to speak the truth if it might offend someone.

You're a joke.

Mike

[MrsPincince]

At least you acknowledege those.....WOW disgusts you huh?!.