About the idea that Obama’s spending has been tame
You’ve heard of lies, damned lies, and statistics? Well, here’s Exhibit A: a column at MarketWatch by Rex Nutting.
Nutting’s column, titled “Obama spending binge never happened,” has caused a lot of excitement among people who would like to believe it’s true. And the bottom-line numbers — which are as far as Nutting goes in his column — do show that total spending has risen more slowly between fiscal 2009 and fiscal 2013 than you might have otherwise believed. Annual federal spending growth during President Obama’s first term, Nutting’s numbers show, has been 1.4 percent. That would be slower than in any of the seven previous terms, dating to the beginning of the Reagan years. Going out of his way to be even-handed, Nutting even graciously attributes Obama’s “stimulus” spending in FY09 to Obama rather than to George W. Bush, under whom that fiscal year began.
What a guy!
But what Nutting’s surface-level “analysis” fails to acknowledge — aside from the fact that he’s giving Obama full credit for a level of spending that won’t even begin for four more months, making it a completely unknowable quantity — is the vast amount of spending that was supposed to be temporary but instead has been baked into Uncle Sam’s cake. Accounting for the temporary-turned-permanent gives us a truer depiction of the Obama’s (sorry to say it!) spending binge.
Let’s start with the appropriations bills Obama signed for FY09 other than the stimulus. The two major ones were the $105.9 billion supplemental defense bill and the $2.9 billion “cash for clunkers” bill. So that’s $108.8 billion that ought to be put on Obama’s ledger rather than Bush’s.
Now let’s take a deeper look at the stimulus spending Nutting attributes to Obama in FY09. Nutting puts it at $140 billion. The next year’s budget, which included the FY09 spending, instead pegged it at $202 billion with an estimated $30 billion in FY13; subsequent budgets have not broken out the spending specific to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (probably because the ARRA has been so amazingly popular and successful). Nutting doesn’t tell us where he gets that $140 billion figure, and so, to avoid mixing numbers, I’m going to stick with the figures from the FY10 budget. That’s $172 billion in “temporary” spending that, under The Most Fiscally Responsible President Evah, should have disappeared.
That’s not all. Spending in FY09 also included $151 billion for the bank bailout, or TARP, and the FY13 budget puts the figure at $12 billion. That’s another net $139 billion in “temporary” spending that should have gone away. Add that to the $172 billion from the stimulus, and we’re talking about $311 billion.
Now, to be truly fair to Obama, let’s make comparisons without including the costs of Medicare, Social Security and net interest. These are big-ticket items that are growing quickly on automatic pilot, and they couldn’t have been changed without a long national debate. So, here’s what we have:
FY09 spending: $3,518 billion
Less Medicare, Social Security and net interest: $2,218 billion
Less “temporary” TARP and stimulus spending: $1,907 billion
Less Obama’s supplemental spending for defense, clunkers: $1,798 billion
The equivalent figure in Obama’s FY13 budget is $2,418 billion, which would represent an annualized growth rate of 7.7 percent. That’s five and a half times faster than the rate with which Nutting credited Obama. Once we adjust Bush’s record to account for the $108.8 billion in Obama’s supplemental FY09 spending outlined above, it places his spending as the second-fastest out of the last eight presidential terms rather than the slowest, as Nutting claimed. (The rankings are the same even if we adjust for inflation.)
Where did Obama want to stick this extra money? In International Affairs ($22 billion, or 59 percent, higher than FY09), Transportation ($30 billion, or 36 percent), Education ($42.2 billion, or 53 percent), Health (not counting Medicare, $51.5 billion, or 15 percent), Energy ($9.2 billion, or 193 percent), to name a few of the largest examples.
However, Nutting did not use Obama’s FY13 budget as a comparison. Perhaps that’s fair, given that the president’s budget was defeated 99-0 in the Senate recently. In any case, Nutting instead used the Congressional Budget Office’s projected baseline, and this really is the coup de grace for his argument.
The CBO’s projected baseline gives us an equivalent FY13 figure of $1,968 billion, which in turn gives us an annualized growth rate of 2.3 percent, which is actually OK by recent historical standards. But what is the CBO’s projected baseline? It is the agency’s estimate of what revenues and spending will be if current law is kept in place. That is, it tells us what happens if the president and Congress do nothing. For this lack of action, Nutting wants to give Obama credit.
But wait, there’s more! Even if we use the CBO projections, it is worth noting the enormous difference between Obama’s first two years, when Democrats had huge majorities in Congress, and his third and fourth years, during which Republicans have controlled the House. The annualized growth rate in the first two years was 7.7 percent; since then it’s minus-2.9 percent.
So, to conclude:
We are supposed to ignore Obama’s budget proposal, which showed his spending rising faster than what’s typical for the past 30 years, and instead give him credit for a) not going beyond the baked-in spending he set in motion early in his term and b) the gridlock that came to Washington after Republicans took over the House?
Seriously?
You will not find conservatives lauding the George W. Bush years as a model of fiscal restraint, because they weren’t. But it is just as laughable for Nutting and his fellow travelers to try to make such a claim for Obama.
– By Kyle Wingfield
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324 comments Add your comment
Brosephus™
May 24th, 2012
3:23 pm
If my spouse spends on my behalf, I can’t turn around and blame it on her.
Most people don’t have to sign legislation to authorize spending by themselves or their spouse either. I get your point, but there is a slight difference.
Thulsa Doom
May 24th, 2012
3:33 pm
Tiberius,
What up man? I’m going to have to tune it more often. SOme of the liberals actually tried to dispute Kyle’s numbers and logic but of course he explained everything. But the real comedy was watching folks like Becky just rant and rave and not offer one specific point as to why Kyle was wrong. And she doesn’t even realize she is making ZERO sense whatsoever.
md
May 24th, 2012
3:33 pm
“Most people don’t have to sign legislation to authorize spending by themselves or their spouse either. I get your point, but there is a slight difference.”
The question is, would Bush have signed that legislation had Obama not requested it?? And if the answer is no, then Obama would have had to sign it himself……..
md
May 24th, 2012
3:36 pm
td……Becky is a drive by poster…..she comes over here and trolls then heads back to jay’s as if she actually accomplished something. She NEVER stays long enough to have an actual debate…..I’m guessing because she knows her posts are void of facts.
Tiberius - Banned from Bookman's and proud of it!
May 24th, 2012
3:39 pm
Becky is funny, Thulsa.
Kind of a one-note wonder similar to AmVet, except she doesn’t even bother to post meaningless statistics.
redneckbluedog
May 24th, 2012
3:44 pm
OH NO..!!!! 6% unemployment in two years is considered AMERICAN EXCEPTIONALISM..?!!? I think with 10,000 Americans turning 65 every day, MY MAMAW CAN DO BETTER THAN THAT…!!!!
We know Mitt Romney is a “flawed candidate”….I just hope, for the sake of America, that this doesn’t turn out to be another train-wreck like 2008…!!!
AMERICAN EXCEPTIONALISM really starts to take a hit when we keep putting candidates out there like cultists and dufuses like Sarah Palin and Rick Perry…!!!!!
West
May 24th, 2012
3:47 pm
He’s the most frugal president since Ike according to the guy down the hall from you.
When asked about Standard & Poors analysis of US spending in relation to their downgrade of our debt, some of his followers there effectively say that downgrade doesn’t matter because S&P are “prostitutes” for selling their opinion and that their ratings on bond market debt are meaningless. Who new are that hoopla last year was so much ado about nothing and that this admin is so frugal?
JDW
May 24th, 2012
3:48 pm
@Kyle…I don’t have time now to try talk any more sense into you…I will try later. At a high level though.
“And you’re wrong, that is a budget document:” No they are both outlay documents and the one you used just has more granular data which I don’t think will amount to much at the end of the excercise.
“But if you simply use the FY09 total without adjusting it, then you make Bush’s increase look (even) larger than it was, and Obama’s smaller than it actually was. I get the feeling you’re not getting my point in this whole exercise, which is to attribute responsibility for spending properly.”
No not true…by doing it the way I did it I have deleted $291B from Bush’s 2009 total. I understand the point I don’t think you are getting to the right number.
As for the Commerce line 91 to 93 is irrelevant I did it in 4 year blocks. I can take a further look later.
Brosephus™
May 24th, 2012
3:50 pm
md
I never said the Chicago politician wasn’t slick.
AmVet
May 24th, 2012
3:52 pm
A Republican approval rating of 75% for GWB when he left office is definitely not a meaningless statistic.
It is exceeding relevant, particularly given Kyle’s claim that, You will not find conservatives lauding the George W. Bush years as a model of fiscal restraint, because they weren’t.
That it references arguably meaningless – as in senseless – people is just a huge laugh at the offended and obsessed one’s expense! Who was no doubt, in that category!
Tiberius - Banned from Bookman's and proud of it!
May 24th, 2012
3:53 pm
Thanks for bringing that up, redneckbluedog, as it gives me another chance to point out how much the Obama campaign lies to try to keep his job.
Mitt Romney said that we’d see 6% unemployment by the end of his first term by following his plans and policies.
The Obama campaign (and the dolts on MSNBC) immediately jumped on Romney for walking back his promise to reduce unemployment to 4% made earlier this week.
Except he never made that promise or pledge.
His quote was that we shouldn’t be celebrating 6% unemployment or even 4% unemployment, referring to Obama’s dogwashers celebrating the current 8.1% unemployment rate.
These Obama people will do anything, or lie about anything to maintain their power.
Shawny
May 24th, 2012
3:55 pm
Becky – 11:51 AM, duh, because he (and his pal Luckovich) are harping on the same “statistics”
md
May 24th, 2012
3:55 pm
“A Republican approval rating of 75% for GWB when he left office is definitely not a meaningless statistic.
It is exceeding relevant, particularly given Kyle’s claim that, You will not find conservatives lauding the George W. Bush years as a model of fiscal restraint, because they weren’t.”
You are aware that conservative and republican are not the same….right?
Tiberius - Banned from Bookman's and proud of it!
May 24th, 2012
3:56 pm
AmVet obviously doesn’t understand the meaning of the term “approval rating”, and that it doesn’t speak specifically to an approval of economic or fiscal issues, else he would never have posted that meaningless statistic once again.
AmVet
May 24th, 2012
3:59 pm
So tell us brilliant one.
What does the phrase approval rating mean?
This should be fascinating…
JohnnyReb
May 24th, 2012
4:05 pm
Thanks Kyle for setting the record straight. Jay’s bunch was drunk with glee yesterday taking Nutting’s and Jay’s writings to be gospel since, in their mind, Barry just can’t do no wrong. They have similar blinders on about anything Obama.
Shawny
May 24th, 2012
4:06 pm
Amvet, regarding “You will not find conservatives lauding the George W. Bush years as a model of fiscal restraint, because they weren’t.”
Perhaps conservatives that identified themselves as Republicans. For us conservatives that are generally independant (and sometimes vote democrat), we absolutely did not laud GWB as fiscally responsible. He was not.
The point I had yesterday is relevant. Even if you give Obama credit for only raising spending 1.4%, consider what you are putting the 1.4% ON TOP OF. It is on top of 2 terms of irresponsible spending.
So if you ay GWB was irresponsible, Obama is 101.4% as irresponsible as GWB. He did not make spending less. He made it 1.4% higher. Higher than high.
Anyone else get it?
Tiberius - Banned from Bookman's and proud of it!
May 24th, 2012
4:07 pm
It means OVERALL JOB approval rating, AmVet, as anyone with working brain tissue knows.
That is what Gallup (the poll you cited from Jan, 2009) asks.
Now, some pollsters go into detail regarding specific questions on particular issues, yet Gallup did not for that poll.
So if you wish to post a meaningful statistic refuting Kyle’s original comment (for the first time, btw) you might wish to find a poll of Republicans and their approval / disapproval of Bush’s fiscal policies.
Now with Ten Percent Fewer Calories
May 24th, 2012
4:09 pm
The point I had yesterday is relevant. Even if you give Obama credit for only raising spending 1.4%, consider what you are putting the 1.4% ON TOP OF. It is on top of 2 terms of irresponsible spending.
So if you ay GWB was irresponsible, Obama is 101.4% as irresponsible as GWB. He did not make spending less. He made it 1.4% higher. Higher than high.
Anyone else get it?
I get it. You’re saying that Reagan is 100+% as irresponsible as his predecessor, etc.
JohnnyReb
May 24th, 2012
4:10 pm
“These Obama people will do anything, or lie about anything to maintain their power.”
You got that right. Their appearance on the Sunday morning programs is enough to turn your stomach. If they couldn’t spin, they would be mute.
At the head of the group is Obama himself. His latest was to tell the crowd, at yet another speech, how Republicans ran up the debt and he had to clean it up. Throw up is more like it.
Obama is being criticized by both the Left and Right in Congress for failing to lead. All he knows and want to do is campaign. We can’t be rid of him soon enough.
AmVet
May 24th, 2012
4:11 pm
It appears that only the neocons gave Bush a free pass for his hand in destroying the American economy.
The majority of Americans are neither that craven or willfully blind…
Although Obama has been president for more than three years, 56% of Americans continue to blame former President George W. Bush and the Republicans for the country’s current economic problems, with only 29% blaming Obama and the Democrats.
Tiberius - Banned from Bookman's and proud of it!
May 24th, 2012
4:12 pm
Ten Percent, in case you missed it, Reagan is dead.
Your deflection from the actual issue is noted and logged.
Tiberius - Banned from Bookman's and proud of it!
May 24th, 2012
4:13 pm
Your deflection is duly noted and logged, AmVet.
UandBob
May 24th, 2012
4:17 pm
@Finn McCool:
I would buy that explanation if I had seen that phrase used in “print” regarding Bush. Seeing it comments doesn’t count. An editorial written in response to another article should not be written using broken vernacular (unless there is a real point, like discussing the failure of the school system to teach basic English or writing a satirical piece, neither of which is going on here).
Even assuming that such articles do exist, that was the minor point. Still, there is no response to how a journalism degree and a failure to understand how spending money in multiple years from a single authorization designed to spend money over multiple years equates to credentials to write on economic issues. And why the errors in either logic or truth (it’s one or the other) should lend credibility to the rest of the article, sorry, blog post.
Thulsa Doom
May 24th, 2012
4:17 pm
Tiberius,
Becky wouldn’t know a fact if it bit her in the butt. Kyle gave her a few chances to actually make a point or tell him where his numbers were wrong and the woman just kept droning on with rhetoric and hyperbole. It was truly comical.
Now with Ten Percent Fewer Calories
May 24th, 2012
4:18 pm
Ten Percent, in case you missed it, Reagan is dead.
Your deflection from the actual issue is noted and logged.
Reagan’s status has absolutely nothing to do with the point that I actually made. You simply failed to grasp it for I could have just as easily referenced Bush and the point would have been unchanged and Bush is not dead. Allow me to guess your next less than astute observation–Bush is not president. Duhhhhhh!
Don Abernethy
May 24th, 2012
4:19 pm
When Obama spends tax payers money he doesn’t loose any sleep over it. After all it is all his money isn’t it???
Tiberius - Banned from Bookman's and proud of it!
May 24th, 2012
4:20 pm
Thulsa, Kyle was actually a bit more animated in his response to Becky today than his usual tone.
I liked it.
md
May 24th, 2012
4:22 pm
“You got that right. Their appearance on the Sunday morning programs is enough to turn your stomach. If they couldn’t spin, they would be mute.”
And when they tell the truth (Booker), they get a phone call that tells them to recant…..but try not to be too obvious when doing so. Booker would have been better off growing a pair vs loosing his pair.
Tiberius - Banned from Bookman's and proud of it!
May 24th, 2012
4:26 pm
Ten Percent, the article is about OBAMA’S spending issues, not Bush’s, not Reagan’s, not Clintons.
OBAMA’S.
Kyle has pointed out the fallacies he believes are in Nutting’s argument. if you wish to disprove Kyle’s contention that Nutting is incorrect regarding OBAMA’S spending, you cannot do so by saying Bush/Reagan/Clinton did so and so.
Doing so only provides yet another deflection on your part, and shows that you likely have no alternative argument to make against Kyle’s points.
Tiberius - Banned from Bookman's and proud of it!
May 24th, 2012
4:31 pm
In short, Ten Percent, if this was a debate class the instructor would have first admonished you for not addressing the topic, failed you for not producing a cogent argument against his admonishment, then kicked you out of the room, telling you to never darken his door again.
Now with Ten Percent Fewer Calories
May 24th, 2012
4:34 pm
Ten Percent, the article is about OBAMA’S spending issues, not Bush’s, not Reagan’s, not Clintons.
Which leaves us with so much to discuss in relative terms, doesn’t it. By the way, did you happen to remind Kyle of your startling revelation in order to allow him time to seek out a column to rant about that also does not talk about Bush or Clinton or Reagan…
Now with Ten Percent Fewer Calories
May 24th, 2012
4:36 pm
And by the way, TB, don’t bother ever darkening my door. You have failed before ever starting.
Tiberius - Banned from Bookman's and proud of it!
May 24th, 2012
4:40 pm
If you wish to discuss spending by other Presidents in relative terms, Ten Percent, you are free to do so.
It is still a deflection from the actual topic, nevertheless.
Thulsa Doom
May 24th, 2012
4:44 pm
Oh noes. There are liberals who still think W is potus.
md
May 24th, 2012
4:47 pm
Nutting for the most part attributed fy 2009 to Bush…..only problem with that:
“President Bush signed only three of the twelve appropriations bills for FY 2009: Defense; Military Construction/Veterans Affairs; and, Homeland Security.”
“Congressional Quarterly (subscription required) maps out a history of the FY 2009 final appropriations bills (H.R. 1105 and PL 111-8), that would lead one to attribute most of the accelerated spending in FY 2009 to President Obama in a piece titled “2009 Legislative Summary: Fiscal 2009 Omnibus.” From CQ, “the omnibus provided a total of $1.05 trillion — $410 billion of it for discretionary programs — and included many of the domestic spending increases Democrats were unable to get enacted while George W. Bush was president.” If accepted as true, this statement alone undercuts Nutting’s whole premise that FY 2009 is wholly Bush spending.”
saywhat?
May 24th, 2012
4:51 pm
md-”You are aware that conservative and republican are not the same….right?”
____________________________________________________________
Nowadays, a “conservative” is what a Republican calls itself to distance itself from association with the 8 year Bush disaster. It should be noted that most of these same “conservatives” voted for that failure twice, for which they will take no responsibility, nor tolerate any mention thereof because the US economy was just fine until January 2009.
md
May 24th, 2012
4:54 pm
I’m a registered (I), and consider myself more conservative than liberal…..I doubt I am alone.
saywhat?
May 24th, 2012
4:57 pm
Hey ten percent, don’t mind lil tibby. He’s just mad he is stuck here at the kiddie table, and can’t go smoke pot with the grown ups over at Bookman’s.
saywhat?
May 24th, 2012
5:02 pm
“Conservative” registered independents are typically former Republicans with slightly more shame than the the still Republican registered “conservatives”. Not enough shame to admit to the world they were greviously wrong about Bush and the disaster caused by Republican governance, but just enough to want to distance themselves a little further from the mess they left behind.
saywhat?
May 24th, 2012
5:03 pm
oops- “grieviously”
Now with Ten Percent Fewer Calories
May 24th, 2012
5:06 pm
saywhat?
Kyle should do a post on the perils of pot. It would be the conservative thing to do. Perhaps a timely link to discuss. Something like this.
TGT
May 24th, 2012
5:10 pm
Thanks for calling the libs, among them Bookman, out on this. Coulter’s column yesterday did the same, and I pointed it out in Bookman’s blog. It seems, however, that I was relegated to awaiting moderation purgatory. Maybe the moderators didn’t want poor Jay embarrassed.
Rafe Hollister
May 24th, 2012
5:16 pm
saywhat?
voted for that failure twice
Guilty, had no other choice. The Dems did not nominate a rational alternative in Gore and Kerry, both absolutely unqualified. Don’t blame me for voting for Bush, blame the Dems for the poor choices they gave us. GWB was never my choice for the GOP nomination and I voted against him in the primary twice, but he got the nomination, and in a two man race with Skerry and Algore, no choice.
It is America, we always vote for the lessor of two evils.
Martin Williams
May 24th, 2012
5:19 pm
Kyle, I can’t wait to see Mitt Romney become our next president and won’t be surprised a bit. People like you re-elected Georgia W Bush for a second term even though him and his administration made up the biggest lie in history to attack Iraq in the name WMD. He killed Sadam to avenge the attempt Sadam made on his papas life main reason and not WMD. You all know what happened to the UK when Cameroon came in as PM and started cutting social spending…….UK is back in some serious recession. For us it will be a depression when Romney is elected as the rich will truly become richer and that is perfect for me.
xdog
May 24th, 2012
5:36 pm
“Nutting is one of those dread “columnists,” too; his piece is branded “commentary.” So, by your standard, you shouldn’t believe him, either.”
From WSJ online site: Rex Nutting, MarketWatch’s Washington-based international commentary editor, checks the facts behind financial and economic pronouncements of executives, pundits and politicians.
His employers say Nutting=editor. For me, editor=journalist is a lot truer than, say, Coulter=journalist. Of course that doesn’t make Nutting right but if he’s as egregiously wrong as you and your buddies say, why does the WSJ still give him a platform?
nomobama
May 24th, 2012
5:40 pm
Poppyc0ck…anytime you have 1 presidents who has accymulated more debt than the other 43 combined, you are well on your way to becoming Greece.
Tiberius - Banned from Bookman's and proud of it!
May 24th, 2012
5:44 pm
Technically, nomobama, your numbers aren’t accurate.
All other Presidents combined gave us about $10 trillion in debt. Obama is responsible for about $5 trillion.
Karen
May 24th, 2012
6:01 pm
Did someone really quote Ann Coulter?
Thulsa Doom
May 24th, 2012
6:12 pm
Karen,
Worse yet someone once quoted Paul Krugman. Even Al Gore has been quoted if you can believe that.