Obama Has Lowest Spending Record of Any Recent President

Except that is not a spending graph. It's a spending / revenue. The economic downturn hit revenues hard. Also tax cuts.

I like how you don't show Clinton and lump Bush's all together to hide the increases under his watch. You are playing a manipulative game here.

 

And his graph comes from the blog of the American Enterprise Institute, which contains gems like:

"If the opportunity society is becoming a myth, it is not because of income inequality. It is because of the leaders who insist that opportunity is not real and encourage policies that redistribute more and more income. They are moving America from a culture of aspiration to a culture of envy."

And, from the Wikipedia on AEI:

"More than twenty AEI scholars and fellows served either in a Bush administration policy post or on one of the government's many panels and commissions. Among the prominent former government officials now affiliated with AEI are former U.S. ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton, now an AEI senior fellow; former chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities Lynne Cheney, a longtime AEI senior fellow; former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, now an AEI senior fellow..."

 

Understatement! Does the data include Bush's "hidden" costs for his unnecessary war?

 

The numbers are a direct rebuttal of the implication that his "unprecedented" spending was due to his "nature" (read, desire to destroy 'Murrican values) and not the situation. And equally ridiculous. Fight fire with fire, I guess, but the whole thing is just blindingly stupid.

 

I burned down the Kwik E Mart last night. Today Apu happens to be there sweeping up the ashes so I don't feel any guilt or even inaccuracy affixing his name to this particular fire.

#areyoukidding

 

the authors of the original study would suggest the Kwik E Mart didn't really burn down.

#LiesDamnedliesAndStatistics

 

Even if you were look back at 2008 (prior to the 2009 hike) to 2012, you'd have about a 4-5% annual growth rate, which would be lower than all the recent GOP Presidents - Reagan, Bush, and Bush - and only higher than Clinton. It STILL disproves the notion the Obama has been expanding government spending at some obscene rate.

(and that ignores that much of the spending increase is in mandatory spending; you can blame Obama for not reforming entitlements, but it's not something that he actively grew)

 

4%-5% is not quite the same headline as 1.4%.

And since they used projections for the last two years with minimal increases, you're probably closer to 8% to 10% on actuals. (they've used the most impartial projections, but they're still speculative at best).

And I'm fully in agreement the deficits are much more influenced by revenue, demographics and economic conditions and that they'd be near impossible to address by spending cuts alone. And that the numbers would be no better (likely worse) under McCain/Romney/Newt....

But this study is bad math. It's drawing a conclusion that's not accurate. Spending is up. NOT PRIMARILY OBAMA'S FAULT. NOT NECESSARILY A BAD THING. But it's still up. I don't think an understanding of spending/budgetting/deficits is enhanced when you muddy up the math.

 

I eagerly await the partisan Republican retort.

Will it be the tried-and-true "Nu-uh," or can we expect to hear the ideologically-rigid "HURRRR DURRRR"?

Let's find out below!

 

I've noticed recently they tend to stay out of threads with facts. Either that or try and derail with "Obama is da debil"!

 

Budgets are ultimately jointly agreed upon by the Executive and Legislature so this analogy isn't clearly stated enough to be apt. But you got another snarky jab in for your team, so I guess trillion dollar deficits are an accomplishment now.

 

Whoa! Does the stimulus spending belong to Bush or Obama?

If it belongs to Bush, as Obama asserts, then Obama is merely carrying Bush's water -- and not doing a good job of it. Democrats are saying Bush saved the economy.

If it belongs to Obama, who likes to take credit for saving the economy because of it, he admits he is now lying his pants off by claiming his rate of spending is the lowest in years.

Either way, the public can easily see Obama lies with impunity.

 

Did you even read the thread? Your question has been answered - multiple times - and completely blows up your premise.

 

Let's just be really honest here. I mean truthful.

The truth is, no president has a effing clue about economics. Bush, Obama, Reagan, Clinton. Macroeconomics is complex, and the only presidential candidate qualified in this area is.....no one.

What Bush did was finally start listening to rational people and not the idiots who advised him the first 6 years. His last two years weren't as bad. and finally, he did what rationale people did to stave off the collapse.

When Obama came in, he also listened to the right economic advisers and continued the policies. So honestly, Bush & Obama acted correctly.

Had Bush been that way from the get-go, he might not have been a bad president. Take out the first 6 years, and he actually wasn't bad - it just took him 6 years to learn.

Obama took a pragmatic approach which has served our country well. Despite your spin machine, the Health Care plan really is just insurance reform and doesn't expand gov't like you wing nuts claim. It really is a carbon copy of Romney's plan - and something Republicans supported as an alternative to Hillary-Care...of course once Obama embraced it, they all switched.

What has Obama done that's so great? Be pragmatic. He isn't a democrat or a republican. Truth is, he's a moderate. His foreign policy is neither hawkish or dovish. It's practical. Get the most out with the least in. Put more troops if that's what is necessary. Don't if he can get what he wants. Throw in an extra helicopter and take a chance to get Bin Laden - that was probably his ballsiest move.

Was he perfect? Heck no. did he do a better job than Bush. Absolutely. What about all his promises to do x,y,&z? yeah, that's politics. You think Romney is going to get us to 6%? Than you are smoking something really good.

My main issue with Romney - actually my only issue with him - is that he will cut taxes which will cause more deficits, and cut spending which will tank our economy. It's just absurd type of reasoning - wreckless and dangerous. If he wouldn't do those things, or if I knew we'd have a democratic congress for the next 4 years, I wouldn't care who got elected.

Romney's conservative positions are just cow-towing to his right-wing base. Truth is he supports gay marriage, he just takes a position to be in line with his party. Obama does the same crap.

But what is annoying is that you pretend that it's anything otherwise.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_United_States_federal_budget

Spoiler

 

You do understand FY2009 starts in October 2008, several months before Obama came into office, right?

As was noted in the study - and mentioned multiple times here but apparently is too difficult for people to read - anything additional spending Obama requested (like Stimulus) was credited towards him; anything existing prior to Obama was credited to Bush. Why this is such a difficult concept goes well beyond me.

 

3 = several

 

yes, because in 60 days the President can totally unilaterally change what the Congress and Previous president spent a year hashing out.

 

3.5+ months, which covers 30% of the fiscal year. And, of course, very little passes in Congress that results in immediate spending and instead much would go into FY10 - and never mind the fact that when immediate spending WAS passed (a portion of stimulus, for example), it was actually credited to Obama anyway by the study.