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
Jefferson
May 24th, 2012
11:46 am
Money wisely spent to turn the trend. Now raise revenue and cut spending to get back on track, then maybe we could afford a tax cut after some years of sacrafice.
Becky
May 24th, 2012
11:51 am
Kyle-why are you rehashing a Bookman column from yesterday? No original ideas?
Class 'of '98
May 24th, 2012
11:55 am
Like Ann Coulter wrote, the liberals will be able to claim that Obamacare doesn’t go over budget and raise the deficit because they will blame it on Calvin Coolidge.
Class 'of '98
May 24th, 2012
11:55 am
Becky obviously didn’t read the column.
xdog
May 24th, 2012
11:56 am
Nutting wrote about rate of growth and had some nice charts.
You counter with the same old handwaving you’re known for.
You write “You will not find conservatives lauding the George W. Bush years as a model of fiscal restraint, because they weren’t.”
But you will find every conservative lauding the Ronald Reagan years as a model of fiscal restraint. It’s an article of faith, facts be damned.
Here’s a nice link for you: http://mediamatters.org/research/201205240001
Becky
May 24th, 2012
11:58 am
Quoting Ann Coulter??? Oh my. This was rehashed to death by Bookman’s bloggers. Very telling that Kyle is reposting a rewritten version for bashing by his minions. They will be here soon…..
Kyle Wingfield
May 24th, 2012
12:05 pm
What’s telling is that Becky has no response other than “Jay already wrote about this!”
Kyle Wingfield
May 24th, 2012
12:07 pm
xdog: You don’t think Nutting is more credible because he had a couple of charts; you think he’s more credible because you want to believe him.
If you’d like to dispute that the stimulus and TARP spending has simply been replaced by other spending, making spending growth look flatter than it should, make that argument. If you’d like to dispute that Nutting didn’t account for $109 billion in spending that should have been on Obama’s ledger rather than Bush’s, make that case. If you’d like to dispute anything else, go right ahead. But all you’ve done so far is what I’d call “handwaving.”
Becky
May 24th, 2012
12:08 pm
Yes Kyle-and Bookman’s blog went well over 15 pages I believe. You have added absolutely nothing to what he posted other than the denials, handwringing and but but Obama! You are merely an entertainer on the same level as Rush, Hannity and Boortz. How do you call yourself a journalist? You need to work for National Enquirer or some other rag.
Bryan G.
May 24th, 2012
12:10 pm
What the Nutting report fails to note is what spending would have been the past two years without the Republicans getting the house in January 2011. Had the Dems had free run and the ability to pass the last two budgets unchecked, I imagine the spending would have continued to explode.
Manny
May 24th, 2012
12:11 pm
Wow, I didn’t realize the AJC was a right-wing blogger network.
This guys is just coming up with bogus numbers to attack an article that came from a WSJ affiliate. If the WSJ is a liberal gushing well, truly these right wingers have gone off the range.
I demand to see Cheesy Grits Birth Certificate- Long Form Please
May 24th, 2012
12:11 pm
Becky
He voted for Newt Gingrich.
We aren’t talking rocket scientist here.
Kyle Wingfield
May 24th, 2012
12:12 pm
Becky: You haven’t made an argument yet. And by yet, I mean since you first started showing up on this blog.
Do you disagree that the TARP and stimulus were temporary spending, but that spending on other items has increased to take their place? Do you disagree that this makes Obama’s spending look artificially flat? Do you disagree that Nutting left out spending in 2009 that Obama, not Bush, approved?
Or do you just disagree with those things you don’t like? Because that seems to be more your pattern.
Kyle Wingfield
May 24th, 2012
12:13 pm
Manny: Feel free to point out which of my numbers are bogus.
Manny
May 24th, 2012
12:13 pm
Bryan G: What the Nutting report fails to note is what spending would have been the past two years without the Republicans getting the house in January 2011. Had the Dems had free run and the ability to pass the last two budgets unchecked, I imagine the spending would have continued to explode.
—————-
Problem is that Mitt Romney is attacking Obama as the most spendthrift president in the last 80 years when the opposite is true. The reasons why don’t matter. THe truth is Romney and the right wing is attacking Obama with a big whopper of a lie.
I demand to see Cheesy Grits Birth Certificate- Long Form Please
May 24th, 2012
12:14 pm
Republicans getting the house in January 2011. Had the Dems had free run and the ability to pass the last two budgets unchecked, I imagine the spending would have continued to explode.
This is the myth the republicans put forward every time.
Its the have your cake and eat it too deal.
Whichever part of government they were in control of was the ones trying to control the spending.
The parts they weren’t in control of were doing all the spending.
See so its never their fault.
Classic bogeyman stuff and the yokels buy it.
Bryan G.
May 24th, 2012
12:15 pm
Manny – I don’t think it is a lie. My understanding is that the party line is that Obama has created more debt than the first 42 Presidents combined. As I understand the numbers, GWB took over with about a $5B debt and Obama has created more than $5B in additional debt. Obviously Bush is responsible for another $5B, but at least he did that in 8 years and not 3.5 like Obama.
Ivan
May 24th, 2012
12:16 pm
“You have added absolutely nothing to what he posted other than the denials, handwringing and but but Obama!”
wait….wasn’t the topic about Obama?
Becky
May 24th, 2012
12:16 pm
Kyle-do you disagree the Obama presidency was given the huge debt of Bush’s war? We can play this game all day.
Darwin
May 24th, 2012
12:17 pm
One simple comment – why do you guys always talk about spending when a Democrat is president? Tell me what you were saying when W was president? Or any of the other Republicans who were president? Please publish your documents with dates that prove government spending is a priority for you. And please explain how the Republican House wants to spend more for defense (and for projects) than they agreed to. What – defense spending isn’t BIG GOVERNMENT?
Kyle Wingfield
May 24th, 2012
12:17 pm
Becky: We’re talking about spending, not debt. But nice try.
Bryan G.
May 24th, 2012
12:17 pm
@ Cheesey grits – but it isn’t a myth. Just look at the ridiculous budgets the President has proposed. The GOP has their responsibility for where we are now, but at least they are conscious about the problem (it remains to be seen if they would care if they had both houses and the WH).
Kyle Wingfield
May 24th, 2012
12:21 pm
Oh, and Manny? I was working for WSJ when it bought MarketWatch. To suggest the latter has the same culture as the WSJ editorial page shows you really don’t know what you’re talking about.
Junior Samples
May 24th, 2012
12:21 pm
Republicans aren’t happy unless they can parrot ‘tax and spend, tax and spend’ while referring to a Democrat.
Of course all was quiet while President Bush was just spending….
I demand to see Cheesy Grits Birth Certificate- Long Form Please
May 24th, 2012
12:22 pm
Tell me what you were saying when W was president?
They were very very very quiet.
Junior Samples
May 24th, 2012
12:23 pm
correction: spend and borrow
Grimlock
May 24th, 2012
12:24 pm
Me, Grimlock, no like how 0bama JiveTalker spend other people’s money and keep making federal government bigger and bigger.
Chris Willett
May 24th, 2012
12:24 pm
In his piece, Nutting wrote, “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%.”
Wingfield writes, “Annual federal spending growth during President Obama’s first term, Nutting’s numbers show, has been 1.4 percent.”
This doesn’t give me too much confidence in the rest of the figures cited here, which now should be double-checked by every reader.
After reading lots of these analyses, I’ve concluded that both parties engage in “big spending.” The only difference seems to be that the Democrats are at least willing to raise the revenue to cover it, while the Republicans have pledged never to raise taxes again. Indeed, the Republican presidential candidates all stood on stage earlier in the primary season and indicated that they would not even raise taxes if they could achieve ten times that amount in cuts (video here: http://youtu.be/WKzGZj32LYc)
If we are to accomplish a balanced budget through cuts alone (except to defense), which the Republicans propose, then all other discretionary spending must be cut to the bone – including funding for education and research. That’s not a smart way to run a nation that needs to compete in a 21st Century economy.
Finn McCool (The System isn't Broken; It's Fixed)
May 24th, 2012
12:25 pm
and here is Joan Walsh on the same argument:
http://www.salon.com/2012/05/24/ann_coulters_phony_budget_math/
I Report (-: You Whine )-: mmm, mmmm, mmmmm! Just sayin...
May 24th, 2012
12:25 pm
Aahhh, I jumped the gun-
Apparently when desperation sets in for a dummycrat, they swell up with psychobabble. I could have swore last week they were all torn asunder because Conservatives wanted to impose austerity upon them. Woe was them, they cried us a river. Now, less then one cycle of a Spouting Bull Elizabeth Warren moon later, Conservatives have evolved on Planet Moonbat into wild eyed government funding villains and proponents of massive federal Stimulus programs. Egad, could this be true? Should we flee now?
Manny
May 24th, 2012
12:26 pm
Hey Wingfield, check this: http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2012/may/23/facebook-posts/viral-facebook-post-says-barack-obama-has-lowest-s/
Same source you use. Oh, and that 99-0 vote on Obama’s budget?
A. It was a republican mockery of his budget
B. It was a procedural vote to consider the republican mockery – not even a vote on a budget itself.
Keep posting your B.S. How about some truth from the media for once?
Grimlock
May 24th, 2012
12:27 pm
Me, Grimlock, no like that Fake Republican President Bush for also bloating federal government and intruding into lives of law-abiding citizens by creating out-of-control Department of Homeland “Security,’ letting TSA perverts touch little children and backing so-called “Patriot” Act to snoop into everyone’s personal, not-breaking-the-law business.
I demand to see Cheesy Grits Birth Certificate- Long Form Please
May 24th, 2012
12:27 pm
After bankrupting California, Reagan took over the Presidency and reduced taxes for the top 2% from 38% to 12%.. the biggest tax break EVER, and the beginning of the largest gap between the middle-class and the upper-class in America.
He tripled the National Debt while in office.
Yet for some reason he is a hero.
Becky
May 24th, 2012
12:27 pm
Kyle’s minions are here. Leaving before the craziness breaks out.
Finn McCool (The System isn't Broken; It's Fixed)
May 24th, 2012
12:27 pm
The “tax and spend Presidency” is the chief, if not only, mantra the GOP has against Obama right now. They will try to tear this report down 9 ways to Sunday.
Bryan G.
May 24th, 2012
12:28 pm
I fail to understand why the Obama apologists can’t just admit that the President has done nothing to control spending, debts, and deficits.
I will gladly admit that the GOP ran up way too much debt in the 2000s via reckless spending on wars and a new entitlement (and I will gladly admit that we were all ignorantly silent). But this President has done nothing to address the problem. And to say that “you guys were quiet when Bush was in office” is sort of the intellectual equivalent of “nanny nanny boo boo.” The GOP was wrong then, but at least its acknowledging the problem now.
I can give President Obama credit where it’s due (Libya, OBL, etc.), but he has done nothing to address this problem other than to ignore the Simpson-Boles commission which he, well, commissioned.
Kyle Wingfield
May 24th, 2012
12:28 pm
Chris Willett: Nutting uses both the 0.4% figure and the 1.4% figure. If you read his piece, he explains the former is without putting the stimulus spending in Obama’s column, the latter is with doing so.
If you want to question the disparity, you might ask why he used the 0.4% figure at all when he admits the 1.4% figure is more correct.
Finn McCool (The System isn't Broken; It's Fixed)
May 24th, 2012
12:29 pm
So, Conservatives can’t stand Bush but they voted for him not once, but twice? Was he supposed to get more conservative in his final term?
hehehehe
Kyle Wingfield
May 24th, 2012
12:29 pm
“Leaving now that I realize I don’t have an argument.”
FIFY, Becky.
Manny
May 24th, 2012
12:29 pm
Bryan – The deficits are a result of the following:
1. Bush Tax Cuts
2. Economic recession depressing revenue
3. Bush Wars
4. Entitlement automatic spending increases
Obama’s biggest initiative was adding a few hundred billion to Bush’s stimulus package. Republicans haven’t let him do anything since – including raising taxes to try to help with the deficit.
So if the deficit is your concern, they should be attacking Bush, not Obama, and they should attack their own congress for not raising taxes and making the grand compromise that Obama proposed last year – tax increases and spending cuts.
I demand to see Cheesy Grits Birth Certificate- Long Form Please
May 24th, 2012
12:30 pm
The biggest thing going on here is that Obama not being the biggest spender of all time doesn’t fit the narrative.
And so people like Kyle have top push back hard against any suggestion of that immediately.
Rafe Hollister
May 24th, 2012
12:32 pm
The man is a spending fool. This AM his Carney barker was blaming the press for not taking on the GOP about their emphasis of Oblama’s spending. The only thing Oblama is frugal about is role in our malaise.
He campaigned that he was going to veto bills with ear marks. As soon as he gets into office, he is presented with GWB’s budget bill, loaded with ear marks. What does he do, blames Bush for the irresponsible budget, but signs it anyway. The man never met an expense he was not in favor of funding, if it was in line with his socialistic ideology.
Any one who believes that Barry Oblamer has not increased spending at unprecedented levels, are not worth engaging in a discussion.
Becky
May 24th, 2012
12:32 pm
Kyle-you so funny. There are smarter people than me tearing your post to pieces. I am just sitting back and watching the destruction of your “theory”.
Kyle Wingfield
May 24th, 2012
12:33 pm
And yet, Cheesy Grits, you haven’t pointed to one actual fact in my piece that you dispute.
Bryan G.
May 24th, 2012
12:34 pm
Manny – Assuming all that is true…why does this President continue to propose budgets with $1.3-$1.5T deficits? Even with the President’s budgets assuming that the Bush tax cuts go away for those making over 250k?
Kyle Wingfield
May 24th, 2012
12:35 pm
And yet, Becky, these “smarter people than [you]” have yet to rebut a single one of my points, just engage in some generic screaming and hollering.
What does that say about your smarts?
Hillbilly D
May 24th, 2012
12:35 pm
You need to work for National Enquirer or some other rag.
Weren’t they the ones who broke the John Edwards story? Just sayin’.
TBone
May 24th, 2012
12:39 pm
With or without a budget passed by Congress the past three years, the spending goes on and on. The whole idea that we stick it to the rich by way of tax increases and then curtail spending is typical liberal crap. The spending cuts never materialize. Here’s the dirty little secret; we are all going to have to sacrifice if this ship is to turned around.
Bobby
May 24th, 2012
12:39 pm
It really kills you when President Obama is running the country better than the Republicans, doesn’t it Kyle?
TBone
May 24th, 2012
12:40 pm
With or without a budget passed by Congress the past three years, the spending goes on and on. The whole idea that we stick it to the rich by way of tax increases and then curtail spending is typical liberal crap. The spending cuts never materialize. Here’s the dirty little secret; we are all going to have to sacrifice if this ship is to be turned around.
Kyle Wingfield
May 24th, 2012
12:41 pm
Manny: Budget bills require only 51 votes in the Senate; cloture rules don’t apply. If Senate Dems liked his budget, they could have passed it without even nodding to Senate Republicans. The fact that they didn’t is what opened the door to the Republican “mockery.”
I demand to see Cheesy Grits Birth Certificate- Long Form Please
May 24th, 2012
12:44 pm
And yet, Cheesy Grits, you haven’t pointed to one actual fact in my piece that you dispute.
I’m no economics major ill grant you that.
Listen every American knows that the Government is out of whack financially.
But they aren’t stupid enough to believe its just one party or the other.
Its both.
And from where im sitting the Dems seem to be much more rational about the issue. Cutting spending is one thing. But taxes must be raised as well.
Unfortunately Republicans will not budge on this issue. So the can gets kicked down the road a little further.
This is why I cant support the Republicans. That and the whole Max Cleland being un American thing turned me off forever.
I Report (-: You Whine )-: mmm, mmmm, mmmmm! Just sayin...
May 24th, 2012
12:45 pm
And to think, last night I fell upon the pillow as a tea bagging limited government freak and this morning I awoke as common tax and spender. Such chaos. Such turmoil. What’s next, obozominions, will I develop a desire to cut national defense?
Finn McCool (The System isn't Broken; It's Fixed)
May 24th, 2012
12:45 pm
I seem to recall Obama offering an 8 to 1 cuts to tax idea.
You conservatives aren’t really serious about cutting spending. We get another Repub in the White House and you will become silent about the spending once again.
And remember, it wasn’t like W did all that spending without anyone in your own party noticing and raising a stink – look at all the work Bob Barr did to rail against it.
Hypocrites, one and all.
Joe the Prophet
May 24th, 2012
12:46 pm
Mitt Romney = Evening in America
He neither has backbone, the charisma, nor the Christian background to unite the country…We continue to limp along, further divided by tax cuts and social injustice…only this time with no biblical legitamacy….How can you point the finger at homosexuals and abortionists when you support polytheism…!?!?!?
American Exceptionalism…!?!?!? I’m sorry, that has been outsourced to China and Mexico by private equity….Gotta keep those investors happy….
I Report (-: You Whine )-: mmm, mmmm, mmmmm! Just sayin...
May 24th, 2012
12:48 pm
By all rights, this should make George W Bushie into getalife and paul krugman’s hero, correct?
Grimlock
May 24th, 2012
12:53 pm
Me, Grimlock, no vote for President because he can dance and shoot basketball to make young, uneducated people with right to vote think he/she is cool while also “guilting” them into voting for your unqualified behind to try to prove they are not racist.
Obama is over
May 24th, 2012
12:58 pm
Becky obviously balances her checkbook with the strategy that Daddy will cover her if she gets overdrawn. Same thing with her credit cards. No need to worry about paying them off. She will just raise the limits and ask Daddy for more money. No need to actually have a plan in place to achieve fiscal responsibility. Paying off debt is somebody else’s problem because Obama is going to take care of everything by taxing the rich. Curtailing spending is out of the question because Becky is entitled to it and Daddy is going to live forever. No need to plan for the future. Obama has been an incompetent steward of our tax dollars. Sacrificing our children’s future by accumulating too much debt because of people like Becky’s naivete is simply irresponsible.
JDW
May 24th, 2012
1:02 pm
@Kyle…you are making this way too complicated and in the process obscuring the truth and misstating the facts. The government puts out a spreadsheet that details spending by function and sub function since the 1940’s (Table 3.1). That’s actual dollars going out the door which is the proper measure.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/Historicals
Now if you download that sheet and delete the big ticket items of Medicare, Social Security and net interest (lines 8-12, 17-19) the Commerce Housing Credit bit which is immaterial except for 2009 you can get a true picture of discretionary expense performance for all Presidents (clear subtotals and sum after new line 20).
What you find lo and behold is exactly what anyone that can see would expect.
Reagan 1 31.84% Average 7.96%
Reagan 2 14.19% Average 3.55%
Bush 1 1 18.48% Average 4.62%
Clinton 1 1.06% Average 0.27%
Clinton 2 23.18% Average 5.80%
Bush 2 1 51.42% Average 12.86%
Bush 2 2 26.13% Average 6.53%
Obama 18.57% Average 4.64%
It’s not rocket science and its real simple. Obama/Clinton spend less Reagan/Bush spend more.
Finn McCool (The System isn't Broken; It's Fixed)
May 24th, 2012
1:06 pm
Conservative whine circa 2004 (after starting two wars WHILE handing out tax cuts!!): “chirp chirp….nothing but crickets….”
Conservative whine circa 2012 (a time when their party is rightfully no longer in control of anything): “We’re soooooo sorry we didn’t speak up or try to stop it. Honest, all we care about is controlling spending. Now we want you Democrats to act like the responsible adults we were not able to be…. and halt all spending (or at least that which benefits the poor, elderly, etc)………Please, please, please…no, we DEMAND you act responsibly and cut this spending. We are sooooooo sorry. We promise, you give us the reins once again, we will be the responsible adults too….(wink, wink)”
Kyle Wingfield
May 24th, 2012
1:06 pm
Also, Manny: The Politifact article checks only Nutting’s claim that bottom-line spending has grown slowly. I acknowledged as much right from the top of my post — and then went on to explain why this is a superficial way to look at Obama’s spending record. (Fwiw, I would argue that, at the very least, Politifact should have done a better job of looking for other FY09 spending bills Obama signed, which distorts his record vis-a-vis Bush’s.)
Let me use this analogy:
1. Nutting wrote the equivalent of “Joe drove home from work.”
2. I, noting that Joe made some stops along the way, wrote the equivalent of “Joe drove home from work, but stopped at a strip club on the way.”
3. Now, Joe’s friends are pointing to what Nutting wrote and saying, “See? Joe is a great family man because he drove straight home from work!”
In neither Nutting’s actual article nor the sentence I attributed to him in my illustration is there an actual falsehood. (Although, as noted above, I do think he overlooked some critical facts about FY09 spending.) But nor does his writing, in either case, tell the entire story.
My post about Obama’s spending is my attempt to tell the entire story.
Finn McCool (The System isn't Broken; It's Fixed)
May 24th, 2012
1:09 pm
Going to strip clubs doesn’t make you a bad family man.
Kyle subtly laying out his morals again….
That Black guy
May 24th, 2012
1:13 pm
Becky
May 24th, 2012
11:58 am
Quoting Ann Coulter??? Oh my. This was rehashed to death by Bookman’s bloggers. Very telling that Kyle is reposting a rewritten version for bashing by his minions. They will be here soon…..
_____________________________________________________________________
Becky, would you care to refute the article with logic and facts.
You know, an “honest” debate?
commoncents
May 24th, 2012
1:16 pm
“For this lack of action, Nutting wants to give Obama credit.”
Reminds me of a prestigious award Obama received…
JDW
May 24th, 2012
1:16 pm
@Kyle…BTW I probably should have left the Income Securty line in…I thought it was mainly pensions but it has other programs as well. Really doesn’t change the picture much…
Reagan 1 31.12% Average 7.78%
Reagan 2 12.52% Average 3.13%
Bush 1 1 25.58% Average 6.39%
Clinton 1 3.80% Average 0.95%
Clinton 2 20.91% Average 5.23%
Bush 2 1 45.44% Average 11.36%
Bush 2 2 32.50% Average 8.12%
Obama 14.96% Average 3.74%
marcus bales
May 24th, 2012
1:17 pm
Thank you for your analysis. Now, if you and your fellow Republican could be just as honest when you tout the 8% unemployment figure when Bush left office, instead of being honest and admitting we were just on the cusp of the great recession and that figure would have gone up in the following months regardless of who was elected.
iggy
May 24th, 2012
1:17 pm
Doesnt matter. Obama is floudering on all fronts. Just a matter of time before he disappears beneath the ever so stinky waters of THE ALMIGHTY TOILET, then *FLUSH*.
Finn McCool (The System isn't Broken; It's Fixed)
May 24th, 2012
1:17 pm
Cons are like the husband that never second guesses his expenditures – he can rationalize them till the cows come home. But if his wife buys something? Watch out!
Husband: “Do you really need that?”
Husband: “Really? Couldn’t you have waited until Friday?”
Husband: “….You didn’t think that through”
Husband: “Look, I needed that new driver, my other three are ruining my game…”
Michael
May 24th, 2012
1:18 pm
Kyle, I’d be interested to know what other items swelled to take the place of the temporary spending you pointed out. It is my understanding that a great deal of the replacement spending was automatic safety net programs that no president has control over. I have trouble pointing to exactly what legislation Obama signed that caused the replacement spending later in his term. The ACA does not kick in for another two years.
Stevie Ray...Clowns to the left and Jokers to the right here I am...
May 24th, 2012
1:20 pm
KYLE,
I’m an actuary and the old adage that figures don’t lie but liars figure is the rule rather than exception with our underperforming (understatement) government. Two things numerical get my mind into the land of fairies and unicorns….First is the idea that the CBO can with even a remote confidence, project impact scenarios 5-10 or more years out so let’s discount that for a moment. Second, the vast majority of voters and our elected corruptresentatives can’t barely compete in simple arithmetic ergo, what does that really tell us? It tells me that spin rules as the gullible rule.
The most amusing part is that our trusted, fiduciarily responsible, masterfully accurate federal government is the first entity known to man to ACCOUNT for $1 Trillion…it’s a really large number that one would be hard pressed to count to in a life time….
That Black guy
May 24th, 2012
1:21 pm
I demand to see Cheesy Grits Birth Certificate- Long Form Please
May 24th, 2012
12:27 pm
After bankrupting California, Reagan took over the Presidency and reduced taxes for the top 2% from 38% to 12%.. the biggest tax break EVER, and the beginning of the largest gap between the middle-class and the upper-class in America.
He tripled the National Debt while in office.
Yet for some reason he is a hero.
_________________________________________________________________
I love the smell of deflection in the morning.
That Black guy
May 24th, 2012
1:22 pm
Becky
May 24th, 2012
12:27 pm
Kyle’s minions are here. Leaving before the craziness breaks out.
_____________________________________________________________
TRANSLATION: I CAN’T refute what Kyle wrote.
Stevie Ray...Clowns to the left and Jokers to the right here I am...
May 24th, 2012
1:23 pm
Marcus,
The 8% number is best revised to include those giving up or underemployed which is a much more accurate read on the state of the job market…that number is around 16%…may have been same under Bush I don’t know but the gullible who premise all commentary on the 8% number are well…misguided to say the least…
That Black guy
May 24th, 2012
1:24 pm
Finn McCool (The System isn’t Broken; It’s Fixed)
May 24th, 2012
12:27 pm
The “tax and spend Presidency” is the chief, if not only, mantra the GOP has against Obama right now. They will try to tear this report down 9 ways to Sunday.
_______________________________________________
And yet you haven’t.
Skeered?
Apples and Oranges
May 24th, 2012
1:29 pm
Kyle,
The $105.9 billion supplemental defense appropriation that you point out should be attributed to President Obama, was that discretionary in nature? Meaning, was that money to fund additional troops or expand the wars he inherited? If not, then I don’t think it is fair to attribute these funds to Obama when the previous administration had not appropriated enough funds to support ongoing efforts that could not reasonably be wound down immediately.
I would agree that President Obama should be credited with the following year’s request to fund the surge in Afghanistan as that was his policy that he campaigned upon.
Lastly, you malign the misleading use of stats, but finish your article making the point that GOP House of Representatives oversaw a big decrease in the growth of spending, (7.7% to -2.9%), are you not engaging in the same misleading use of figures that you malign? Is this drop mostly a result of the expiration of temporary stimulus spending?
Perhaps we can agree on one thing, this assertion that President Obama is the most fiscally frugal President in recent history is likely no more reality than those that state that he is the biggest spender.
JF McNamara
May 24th, 2012
1:29 pm
I don’t see your point at all. At 2.3%, he has the lowest spend of any President since Reagan. If he’d spent like Bush or Reagan, then maybe it would qualify as a binge.
Those same “What Ifs” could be applied to all of the President. The facts are what the facts are. If you find a way to “what if” some more money to allocate to Obama to get to 5%, maybe you have a point.
The President’s budget proposal is a political tool and you know it. The budget never comes back exactly like the President sent it from appropriations. It’s simply a political tool.
That Black guy
May 24th, 2012
1:31 pm
Manny
May 24th, 2012
12:29 pm
Bryan – The deficits are a result of the following:
1. Bush Tax Cuts – Which Obama extended
2. Economic recession depressing revenue – true
3. Bush Wars – One of which Bush ended and the other Obama increased
4. Entitlement automatic spending increases – Neither Bush NOR Obama addressed
Stevie Ray...Clowns to the left and Jokers to the right here I am...
May 24th, 2012
1:32 pm
JF,
No shortage of political “tools” in Washington….wow, finally something about which all can agree…
That Black guy
May 24th, 2012
1:33 pm
Becky
May 24th, 2012
12:32 pm
Kyle-you so funny. There are smarter people than me tearing your post to pieces. I am just sitting back and watching the destruction of your “theory”.
______________________________________________________________________
Please point to one using FACTS and NUMBERS.
We’ll wait…
a dad
May 24th, 2012
1:33 pm
Kyle – never argue with stupid people. They will drag you down to their level and then beat you with their experience.
Now, how about a fact which everyone can agree with (but I’d love to see someone disagree as well as the basis for their disagreement). Our federal gov’t spend more than it takes in. Anyone run their own personal household (other than allegations against Becky and her daddy) that way?
That Black guy
May 24th, 2012
1:34 pm
Hillbilly D
May 24th, 2012
12:35 pm
You need to work for National Enquirer or some other rag.
Weren’t they the ones who broke the John Edwards story? Just sayin’.
__________________________________________________
Clinton too…
George P. Burdell
May 24th, 2012
1:36 pm
Great points Kyle and I too think it is laughable that Obama’s spending is being lauded. As I pointed out on Jay’s blog, federal spending under both Clinton and Bush II was right at 19.50% of GDP. For Obama, it has been over 24% and all projections seem to show a similar trend although I agree it is also ridiculous to demonize or credit Obama for spending that has yet to occur.
If a family making 100k a year and spending $120k had to suddenly spend $150k due to some crisis, would you then applaud them for their frugality because they only spend 151,500 the year after the crisis? That seems to be what the Obama camp wants to trumpet and they will probably fool most of the people some of this time.
Finn McCool (The System isn't Broken; It's Fixed)
May 24th, 2012
1:36 pm
Anyone run their own personal household (other than allegations against Becky and her daddy) that way?
Comparing personal finance to the finances of a country which can print money whenever it wants to? Apples and oranges.
JF McNamara
May 24th, 2012
1:39 pm
…and by the way, I forgot to mention that you are the one who is actually lying with statistics. In order to have an apples to apples comparison (and not a lie), you would need to go back for every President and reallocate what they spent similar to how you did with Obama.
What you’ve done is wrong at best and disingenuous at worst.
That Black guy
May 24th, 2012
1:39 pm
Finn McCool (The System isn’t Broken; It’s Fixed)
May 24th, 2012
12:45 pm
I seem to recall Obama offering an 8 to 1 cuts to tax idea. – Link, cite, proof?
You conservatives aren’t really serious about cutting spending. We get another Repub in the White House and you will become silent about the spending once again. – This paragraph contradicts the one below.
And remember, it wasn’t like W did all that spending without anyone in your own party noticing and raising a stink – look at all the work Bob Barr did to rail against it. – This paragraph contradicts the one above.
Hypocrites, one and all. – mirror mirror
Manny
May 24th, 2012
1:39 pm
Kyle: Budget bills require only 51 votes in the Senate; cloture rules don’t apply. If Senate Dems liked his budget, they could have passed it without even nodding to Senate Republicans. The fact that they didn’t is what opened the door to the Republican “mockery.”
Senate doesn’t initiate budgets, the House does. And it wasn’t a budget bill. It was a vote to debate on the budget. You present it as a vote on a budget. Senate Dems aren’t fools, they don’t introduce budgets because that’s not their role. Republicans used a trick where any member can introduce a procedural vote. You should know better about how the Senate works.
As for disagreeing with the Politifact analysis. I suggest your write them if you think they are in error and share their response. Frankly, your numbers are not well sourced and you have done a very poor job of presenting a strong case. You are clearly a partisan hack spewing partisan talking points. That’s fine, but let’s be honest about it. If you want credibility, get a non-partisan source to verify your data and methodology. Write to PF – they will take your analysis seriously and if it is valid post a correction. Somehow I doubt you will do that.
iggy
May 24th, 2012
1:41 pm
Finn fiscal responsibilty consists of tearing checks from the back of his mothers checkbooks, paying for pizza deliverys with said checks then tossing the empty pizza boxes under his moms bed and blaming her for ordering too much pizza and constant check boucing.
Poor Mom.
a dad
May 24th, 2012
1:41 pm
Missed the point Finn. Yes, the U.S. can print all the money it wants, which eventually will be useful for all sorts of non-economic activity such as wiping one’s arse. My point was we spend more than we take in. Agree/disagree? Pretty straight forward. Then you interject something completely unrelated into the debate. Way to go.
Manny
May 24th, 2012
1:42 pm
This is all show. No one here cried about deficits when Bush created them during his tenure. It was fine then. Put a Lib in office, and somehow it’s a problem. The hypocrisy is terrible.
Manny
May 24th, 2012
1:43 pm
a dad – where were you during Reagan, Bush I, and Bush II?
GDRLA
May 24th, 2012
1:45 pm
Too bad this entire issue gets caught up in all of the various rhetoric from all sides – we have serious problems in this country & as yet NO ONE has really gotten serious about addressing them – the left is going to have to give up some of their cherished programs & spending issues while the right is going to have to increase revenue. It requires some radical rethinking of all sides/aspects of the issue – maybe we should legalize some classes of drugs & tax the living H*** out of it, increase the retirement age (Yes, I am a boomer close to retirement age ), reinstate means testing as a condition of public assistance, eliminate many of the corporate welfare programs (agricultural subsidies, etc), cut out all foreign aid, PBS subsidy, etc. As Einstein said, insanity is doing the same thing in the same way repeatedly and expecting a different outcome or result. It becomes evermore true as I get older what my Grandfather taught me @ a young age: I can know that a politician is lying to me when I see his/her lips moving & hear their words! Anyone who gets elected President or to Congress is going to increase the deficit, etc., albeit in their particular partisian way.
That Black guy
May 24th, 2012
1:46 pm
Actually Finn, don’t bother to answer my questions. I won’t see your response. You don’t want dialog, honest debate, or a rational discourse.
You just want to fling poo.
a dad
May 24th, 2012
1:47 pm
Manny – I joined the Navy just as Reagan took office. My first pay raise under Ronnie was something like 18% which I thought was great, till all the older guys told me what they’d been through under Clinton (about 3% totla over 4 years).
As for the Bushes, most of the time I was out of country killing bad guys.
Del
May 24th, 2012
1:54 pm
Becky, didn’t do so well against Fred on Bookman’s blog either.
Michael
May 24th, 2012
1:57 pm
@George P. Burdell:
Looking at spending as a percentage of GDP to compare spending is not the correct way to compare. Spending can be held flat and if GDP plummets (which it did), then this metric goes up. Real increases in spending should be looked at, not changes relative to GDP.
Also, a more accurate way to compare spending is to look at dollars allocated as a direct result of policies enacted by that president. This would mean that if a president signed the bill, it goes on their ledger. If the spending has not happened yet, tough. You signed for it. A Bush would still be on the hook for war spending under Obama and Obama would be on the hook for healthcare spending under his successor. Otherwise, presidents can (and do) pass appropriations that kick in during the next president’s term, effectively blaming them.
And peoples’ opinions in discussions such as this are largely dependent upon their opinions prior to the discussion. We’ll never change, and that is depressing.
Del
May 24th, 2012
2:00 pm
Rex Nutting is a flaming lib. It was funny how Bookman referred to the WSJ implying it was the source of this misleading data when it was really only a Rex Nutting guest column in their editorial page.
UandBob
May 24th, 2012
2:00 pm
How is it that you equate temporary with single use? The programs that you say have become permanent spending were designed to be spent of the course of a few to several years. Your faulty logic is like saying that any gun that is not a single shot must have unlimited ammo. Your description of the spending becoming permanent is also either pure ignorance or a deliberate ploy to fool your readers into thinking the programs continue to spend past the amount they were approved for. That is simply not the case.
What is up with your use of the non-word “evah?” Were you trying to make a racial taunt because you think that is how black people talk, or do you think that you are a pre-pubesent cartoon character named Cartman? Either way, as a supposed journalist (even taking into account that this is more of an editorial column) it really doesn’t help your cause.
So, you either lack the basic understanding of what a multi-year funded initiative is and have no business writing on economic issues (what are your credentials for that anyway?), or you are deliberately lying to your readership and have no business being a journalist (editorial or otherwise).
xdog
May 24th, 2012
2:08 pm
Kyle,
It’s true I think Nutting is more credible. Why shouldn’t I? Journalist versus columnist and all that, plus I haven’t trusted goper economic ideologues since David Stockman stopped telling the truth.
Why should I believe your analysis is anything more than an orchestrated reaction to Nutting’s piece? I doubt you’re an accountant so why not come clean on where you got your numbers? Cato/Koch? AEI? FW? You can tell us.
What I really wonder is why you didn’t pick up the phone and call Nutting and engage him on his numbers. That would have been easy and probably would have led to a decent column.
Finally I am shocked to read your view that anything published in the WSJ could ever be false.
Finn McCool (The System isn't Broken; It's Fixed)
May 24th, 2012
2:08 pm
UandBob,
Kyle’s use of “Evah” is just his way to throw that term back at libs after dealing with “W ~ Worst.President.Evah.” for 8 years+…..going on 12 years now? wow.
Kyle Wingfield
May 24th, 2012
2:09 pm
A few problems with your 1:02, JDW. It’s not as simple as you make it out to be.
The biggest problem is that, if you simply delete those lines you mentioned, you get incorrect totals because some of the remaining numbers overlap (i.e., “Education, Training, Employment and Social Services” is a subtotal included in, not distinct from, “Human resources”).
The next problem is that you deleted “income security.” Why? That refers to things like unemployment compensation and food stamps — programs that Obama has changed since taking office. It should stay in.
After that, while you more or less accounted for the TARP and stimulus by deleting “Commerce and Housing Credit,” that heading includes more than those two programs, which means that eliminating that line item altogether skews the results for previous years. It’s better to isolate those two programs, but this budget doc doesn’t do that — which is why I reviewed this doc but didn’t cite it.
Finally, your method doesn’t account for the $108.8 billion I outlined in supplemental spending Obama approved for FY09 (defense and cash for clunkers). I would hope we can agree that, even in a recent federal budget, that is real money and should be attributed properly.
Instead, I recommend using Table 3.2, which is more specific than 3.1, and keeping only the totals for each department (to avoid duplication). Then, eliminate the totals for Medicare, Social Security and Net Interest.
Then you have to get a true number for FY09. Start by subtracting $108.8B, to account for Obama’s two supplemental bills. Then you have to deal with the supposedly temporary money in FY09 for stimulus and TARP. I believe TARP should be included for purposes of calculating Bush’s spending growth, but not for purposes of calculating Obama’s (since that money was supposed to disappear, and we are trying to measure his “other” spending growth; I surmise you agree with that notion since you were open to cutting the Commerce Housing Credit line).
Finally, the more I think about it, the more I think it’s bogus for Nutting, or us, to use FY13 projections given that all the other numbers in play are actual totals. Who knows what will actually happen between now and Sept. 30, 2013? And we’re looking at yearly averages, anyway, so we don’t need to use the same number of years for each.
Do all that, and you get these average annual results:
Reagan 1: 6.9%
Reagan 2: 4.0%
HW Bush: 4.2%
Clinton 1: 0.8%
Clinton 2: 5.8%
W Bush 1: 9.9%
W Bush 2: 7.7%
Obama 1: 8.7%
Which, as I said all along, puts Obama second-worst, not among the best.
Finn McCool (The System isn't Broken; It's Fixed)
May 24th, 2012
2:10 pm
You don’t want dialog, honest debate, or a rational discourse.
Correct. When I want any of that I have it with someone face-to-face, not a faceless name on a blog site.
Tiberius - Banned from Bookman's and proud of it!
May 24th, 2012
2:10 pm
Kyle, way to go on handling Becky the way she needed to be handled.
Second, as was pointed out yesterday, while Obama can be credited with not increasing spending at a higher rate, his response to lower revenues should have been one of REDUCTIONS in spending, not just a slowing of the increase.
241 more days
May 24th, 2012
2:10 pm
Becky, You are full of it, Kyle has only told the truth. You are just like the rest of the libs on Jay’s site
You are a Bookman minions, you believe everything that he says.
Kyle has shown you the diference, but you are too ignorant to at least think about these.
Sorta like your argument with Fred the other day
Manny
May 24th, 2012
2:12 pm
a dad, i guess you weren’t paying attention to the fact that those big pay raises you got came at massive deficits. In fact, RR practically invented deficit spending.
So you just woke up when Obama took office. How convenient.
Tiberius - Banned from Bookman's and proud of it!
May 24th, 2012
2:12 pm
Wow. Finn finally admits that his only reason for being here is to fling poo.
That alone should get him banned.
U.S.Male
May 24th, 2012
2:13 pm
Electing Obama again would be like the Titanic backing up to hit the iceberg again.
What a joke for a President.
JP
May 24th, 2012
2:14 pm
Even if Nutting’s numbers were right, what he fails to explain is that while Obama’s percentage growth is lower than Bush’s, he’s actually spending more than Bush was by an annual rate of 1.4%. Spending under Bush reached astronomical level’s largely in part to increasing military spending during two separate wars. Now Obama took over with spending already at astronomical levels and he somehow manages to spend more. Taxing the rich will never manage to keep up with out of control spending.
Manny
May 24th, 2012
2:15 pm
U.S. Male. The Titanic was Bush. Obama was just the guy who had to clean it up. And your lot wants to put the same captain (Romney) back in just as the ship is finally beginning to right itself.
Kyle Wingfield
May 24th, 2012
2:16 pm
Michael @ 1:18: I highlighted some examples in the OP.
JF McNamara
May 24th, 2012
2:19 pm
@Kyle,
You can’t just cherry pick one of the Presidents. That’s completely wrong. You either take the data as presented or you cherry pick them all.
That’s the very basics of statistics. You’re just lying with statistics to make your own point. I’m sure I could go back and make Reagan look worse. It’s frustrating that the editors even let you put this out knowing it was biased. Does the AJC have any credibility?
Finn McCool (The System isn't Broken; It's Fixed)
May 24th, 2012
2:19 pm
Tiberius work on your reading comprehension, son.
I did not admit to any such thing. You can post on these blogs without so called “slingin’ of the poo” without feeling the need to interact with every single person you agree with or disagree with.
See, we libs allow you cons to have your views (as misguided as they may be) and still mingle amongst us. You cons, on the other hand, want to banish anyone who thinks differently than yourselves. Looking over this blog every day, there is a con crying to Kyle to ban some lib.
sad, really.
JDW
May 24th, 2012
2:20 pm
@Kyle…sorry but it is that simple…
“The biggest problem is that, if you simply delete those lines you mentioned, you get incorrect totals because some of the remaining numbers overlap (i.e., “Education, Training, Employment and Social Services” is a subtotal included in, not distinct from, “Human resources”).”
Not true, I left the lines for Education, Training, Employment and Social Services I deleted the subtotals because they include the other line items ie Medicare and SS that were deleted. I added properly
“The next problem is that you deleted “income security.” Why? That refers to things like unemployment compensation and food stamps — programs that Obama has changed since taking office. It should stay in.”
See my later post…it makes Obama look better.
“After that, while you more or less accounted for the TARP and stimulus by deleting “Commerce and Housing Credit,” that heading includes more than those two programs, which means that eliminating that line item altogether skews the results for previous years. It’s better to isolate those two programs, but this budget doc doesn’t do that — which is why I reviewed this doc but didn’t cite it.”
This is not a Budget doc these are the ACTUAL EXPENDITURES…more accurate. As I said look at the line it is immaterial.
“Finally, your method doesn’t account for the $108.8 billion I outlined in supplemental spending Obama approved for FY09 (defense and cash for clunkers). I would hope we can agree that, even in a recent federal budget, that is real money and should be attributed properly.”
Any money that was actually spent is accounted for. Appropriations do not equal expenditures.
“Instead, I recommend using Table 3.2, which is more specific than 3.1, and keeping only the totals for each department (to avoid duplication). Then, eliminate the totals for Medicare, Social Security and Net Interest.”
I will look at it but I think this one is fine.
“Then you have to get a true number for FY09. Start by subtracting $108.8B, to account for Obama’s two supplemental bills. Then you have to deal with the supposedly temporary money in FY09 for stimulus and TARP. I believe TARP should be included for purposes of calculating Bush’s spending growth, but not for purposes of calculating Obama’s (since that money was supposed to disappear, and we are trying to measure his “other” spending growth; I surmise you agree with that notion since you were open to cutting the Commerce Housing Credit line).”
This is where you are making errors just eliminating the Commerce line accounts for actual totals. Until you correct the errors the rest is bogus…you will find Obama second only to Clinton.
That Black guy
May 24th, 2012
2:21 pm
Tiberius – Banned from Bookman’s and proud of it!
May 24th, 2012
2:12 pm
Wow. Finn finally admits that his only reason for being here is to fling poo.
That alone should get him banned.
____________________________________________________________________
Nah, let it stick around to expose to us indies the way the rabid democrat mind works.
He helps push rational people AWAY from the rebid dem side.
JKL2
May 24th, 2012
2:24 pm
cheesy grits- Tell me what you were saying when W was president? They were very very very quiet
Not quiet at all. It’s just you were like obama sitting church; didn’t hear a single word that was said.
Tiberius - Banned from Bookman's and proud of it!
May 24th, 2012
2:25 pm
Focus people!
Play with the numbers all you want. Obama may of may not be increasing spending as much as his predecessors.
Doesn’t matter.
What matters is that he should have CUT spending (not just slowed the increase) given the reduction in revenues, and he didn’t do it.
MadMax
May 24th, 2012
2:27 pm
Manny –
Obama wanted this job
1) Bush is no longer president
2) The tax cuts belong to Obama and the Democrats as they are the one’s that passed the extension
3) Obama passed the payroll tax cut further eroding revenues for a program in deparate need
4) Obama passed the cash for clunkers bill
5) Obama passed the healthcare bill, which if it is constitutional, will cost way more than the projections (when has Washingtom ever been right/truthful about the cost of entitlements)
6) Obama continues to outspend all previous administrations
7) Only takes a few hundred billion here and there and you get a trillion
9) Bush is no longer president
Kyle Wingfield
May 24th, 2012
2:27 pm
xdog: ICYMI: Nutting is one of those dread “columnists,” too; his piece is branded “commentary.” So, by your standard, you shouldn’t believe him, either.
My sources are all marked with hyperlinks. You can peruse the very same documents I did, if you wish.
As for why I didn’t “call Nutting and engage him on his numbers”: Have you been to the Internet before? This is how it works: Person A writes something; People B, C and D respond; Other People E, F and G respond to A through D; and so on.
Finn McCool (The System isn't Broken; It's Fixed)
May 24th, 2012
2:27 pm
“We hates the spending, we do….whaaaaaaaaa….”
“What? Republicans are back in control? break out the check book!”
JKL, we called you folks out on that quietness way back in the W years. Many of us libs actually admired the work Bob Barr was doing. But Barr was, by far, the exception to the rule. 99% of cons didn’t utter a sound about W and Repubs spending like drunken sailors in port.
md
May 24th, 2012
2:32 pm
“Obama’s biggest initiative was adding a few hundred billion to Bush’s stimulus package.”
This is one of those tight rope walking acts……if Obama is going to allocate the bulk of the stimulus to Bush, he can not take the credit for ending the recession or any credit from those that claim the stimulus worked……..
And correct me if I am wrong Kyle, but I do not believe Nutting’s numbers include the 410B omnibus bill signed by Obama in 2009…….
Once all the real numbers come out, I think the admin may live to regret yet another knee jerk reaction……….
George P. Burdell
May 24th, 2012
2:33 pm
Michael:
First, I do enjoy a good debate and I appreciate your civility. That is something that is too often missing on these blogs. I’ve often reconsidered or modified an opinion due to the thoughts provided by someone on the opposite side of my thinking.
My figures were done on current dollars for both spending and GDP so whatever impact inflation has, it is present in both sets of numbers. Also, at least in the short term, government spending can have a direct impact on GDP so it becomes somewhat recursive in nature. I don’t mean it as a perfect metric, it just highlights the fact that there was a huge increase in spending to deal with the economic turndown and that has now been baked in. It makes for an easy comparison period and I don’t think that should be the basis for bragging rights. The bottom line is that if you compare 2011 to 2007, spending has increased at an annualized rate of 7.19% compared to GDP growth of only 1.82%. So even if we are taking a step forward, I would argue it is nowhere near a big enough step.
Your point on when appropriations are approved is also well taken but makes it nearly possible to have any kind of debate. We can hardly have one with the numbers taken at face value let alone making what could be arbitrary adjustments. I don’t think it is fair to saddle Obama with the Prescription D spending anymore than I think it is fair to saddle future presidents with ACA spending if they cannot modify it. However, it is also would not be fair to saddle FDR and Johnson with all SS and Medicare expenditures when our current crop of politicians recognize the issue but refuse to deal with it. I’m not so sure Obama, or any president for that matter, would actually spend less money if they didn’t have some baggage from prior administrations to deal with.
That Black guy
May 24th, 2012
2:35 pm
OOPS “rabid”
md
May 24th, 2012
2:38 pm
And I do believe Nutting also omitted several hundred billion that Obama requested from Bush for tarp prior to Obama’s inauguration……….
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aXTl_q8nIqk8
Kyle Wingfield
May 24th, 2012
2:39 pm
JDW: If you left the total for Education, etc. then you have a wrong total — that money is a subtotal included in the heading above it. Use Table 3.2 — it’s much more specific and more straight-forward.
And you’re wrong, that is a budget document: You are using the Historical Tables from the President’s FY13 budget. You may have noticed the word “budget” in the URL, and the fact that it is identified as a budget document on the page to which you linked. The numbers through 2011 are actual totals; from 2012 onward they are estimates or projections. In any case, as I wrote: It does not get specific enough for us to see what’s TARP, stimulus, or something else.
Of course the money spent “is accounted for,” in that it’s in the bottom line. 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.
Now, about the Commerce line: When you look at Table 3.2, you see that it includes other things, such as the post office and deposit insurance. 2009 is not the only year when those line items were relevant: For instance, deposit insurance cost $66B in 1991 and minus-$28B in 1993. Don’t you think those numbers are relevant? If you simply delete that entire total, including those other items, you are skewing the results pre-2009.
md
May 24th, 2012
2:41 pm
“I don’t think it is fair to saddle Obama with the Prescription D spending anymore than I think it is fair to saddle future presidents with ACA spending if they cannot modify it. However, it is also would not be fair to saddle FDR and Johnson with all SS and Medicare expenditures when our current crop of politicians recognize the issue but refuse to deal with it. ”
That doesn’t make sense….it is contradictory.
Brosephus™
May 24th, 2012
2:41 pm
Enter your comments here
AmVet
May 24th, 2012
2:44 pm
You will not find conservatives lauding the George W. Bush years as a model of fiscal restraint, because they weren’t.
Perhaps, though virtually NONE of them said boo while he and his unindicted co-conspirators in congress were spending the nation’s money like spoiled brats with daddy’s credit card at the mall.
Want proof?
In January 2009 when he left office (in disgrace) his approval rating among Republicans was a jawdropping 75%!
???
How is that even possible???
Arguably the worst president in modern American history and his “base” still adored him.
The bottom line is that for years and years on end you could not find any of these so-called conservatives denouncing any of the innumerable and deadly debacles that he unleashed for eight straight years.
And only now, many years later is there even the most tepid of complaints.
So to hold these supposedly conservative Republicans up as either a) men of moral courage or b) paragons of fiscal responsibility is ludicrous with a capital L…
Brosephus™
May 24th, 2012
2:45 pm
Kyle
Not trying to debate pro or con for your posting, but you do have at least one thing factually incorrect in your analysis.
That’s not all. Spending in FY09 also included $151 billion for the bank bailout, or TARP
TARP was passed as one financial package totaling $700 Billion that was signed into law in October 2008. If you’re counting spending that Obama signed, the TARP would not count as he did not pass any legislation in regards to TARP. The 2nd phase was allocation of more of the funding that was passed in 2008. That’s something I caught off the top of my head.
Thulsa Doom
May 24th, 2012
2:45 pm
Good God. Nutting’s misleading and dishonest article just got vaporized, obliterated, eviscerated, and utterly annihilated.
Tiberius - Banned from Bookman's and proud of it!
May 24th, 2012
2:45 pm
And let’s all remember that Obama made a point to promise to cut the deficit in half by the end of his first term.
Whether he has or has not increased spending more than other Presidents, he didn’t do what he promised.
Brosephus™
May 24th, 2012
2:46 pm
Oops, meant to say Obama didn’t **sign** any legislation in regards to TARP.
I Report (-: You Whine )-: mmm, mmmm, mmmmm! Just sayin...
May 24th, 2012
2:46 pm
Uh oh, looks like obozo was for government spending before he was against it, just sayin…
Tiberius - Banned from Bookman's and proud of it!
May 24th, 2012
2:46 pm
Hiya, Thula and Brosephus!
md
May 24th, 2012
2:49 pm
soco…..look at my link….Obama requested funds for tarp through Bush…..one can hardly allocate that to Bush.
Brosephus™
May 24th, 2012
2:51 pm
Tiberius
Wassup!!!!
md
Where did you post that link? I don’t recall exactly how TARP was done, but I thought it was all one package that was done in two parts.
Kyle Wingfield
May 24th, 2012
2:54 pm
Brosephus: The authorization was for $700B; actual money out the door was less. In any case, my only reason for point out that total is that it was a temporary measure that sharply inflated spending in FY09. If Obama had truly kept government spending as flat as Nutting claims, then we should have seen a sharp decrease as TARP and the stimulus faded away. That’s not the case, because he raised spending a great deal elsewhere — just as some of us at the time warned would happen.
a dad
May 24th, 2012
2:55 pm
Manny – my first raise (the rest were pretty standard) were to make up for Carter raping the military. I take it you’ve never served, otherwise you wouldn’t begrudge the military sufficient raises for placing life and limb in harms’s way, something I sort of get the feeling you look down upon. I’ll go back to may initial standard of can’t spend more than you earn. Unless of course you’re on the gov’t entitlement dole (and manny, if say serving in the military is the same as an entitlement, you will have lost any atom of credibility or intelligence hence forward).
ragnar danneskjold
May 24th, 2012
2:56 pm
Good essay, well done. Frankly I cannot believe even the most-crazed Kool-aid-sipping leftist believed the thesis of the Nutting article, even if one assumes that the average leftist has significantly less common sense than the average ninth grader.
Brosephus™
May 24th, 2012
2:56 pm
md
Found it. I see what you’re saying, but wasn’t that $350 B just the second half of the $700 Billion that was already allocated? If you’re crediting Obama simply with spending, then I’d agree with you. If you’re talking about spending that he signed into law, I’d have to disagree with that one. The other things Kyle had appear pretty accurate.
As an aside, I’ve asked countless people what Obama signed into law that added to the debt so much when the point is raised about him adding $5T to the debt. Kyle’s list is the most comprehensive I’ve seen anywhere. Funny that nobody could list anything beyond the stimulus before. Kyle may have just killed two birds with one stone.
Thulsa Doom
May 24th, 2012
2:56 pm
Great job Kyle. You just completely laid waste to another liberal lie.
Pizzaman
May 24th, 2012
2:57 pm
Ah! Let’s Face it. Both party’s suck and their members, duly elected by us, the uninformed, lie to get our vote then do the bidding of the highest bidder. All they care about is raising enough money to get reelected. But I have faith no matter who wins the Country will survive. The only question is in what form. Guess I’ll have to vote for Pat Paulson again and hope for the best.
Kyle Wingfield
May 24th, 2012
2:59 pm
All right, I have to go write Sunday’s column now. Will be back later.
Now with Ten Percent Fewer Calories
May 24th, 2012
2:59 pm
To summarize, per the cited column, Republican presidents since Reagan have had higher annualized fed spending growth rates than Democrat presidents. Thanks for clearing that up for us, Kyle.
Do tell us, Kyle, about those Republican plans to slash that spending growth and please be specific. Don’t leave out a single detail especially when it comes to how much taxes will be slashed and for whom and how much military spending will be increased and how much medicare and medicaid and unemployment benefits and children’s healthcare, etc., will be slashed and how much the debt ceiling will be raised still under those Republican plans. Oh please, tell us the details. Give us a comparison of each proposal and don’t leave out a thing, Kyle. Oh Please! If you don’t do it for us, do it for your children!
Brosephus™
May 24th, 2012
3:00 pm
Kyle
Gotcha. The way I see it, both arguments are correct. WIthout going into specifics, Nutting is correct in saying that he’s kept spending pretty flat. Your point, and others as well, is also correct when you look at the one time spending versus what would have been “normal” spending, if normal is a good term for it. I think Nutting’s simply playing with semantics in order to be correct, but in doing so, he has a thread of truth to cling to. I won’t say he’s right or wrong, but by avoiding specifics, he gives himself an out. He’d probably make a great politician too.
Gordon
May 24th, 2012
3:02 pm
Kyle,
There was a big fight about this on the Bookman blog yesterday, and I pointed out to Jay exactly what you wrote here. I even suggested that you and he had a bet that Jay could convince his readers that Obama was actually a frugal president, and that based on their responses you owed him a lunch.
I respect Jay, and know he is NOT a stupid person. You guys much get a good laugh together from time to time.
md
May 24th, 2012
3:14 pm
“If you’re crediting Obama simply with spending, then I’d agree with you. If you’re talking about spending that he signed into law, I’d have to disagree with that one.”
I see them as one and the same if Nutting is comparing spending. If my spouse spends on my behalf, I can’t turn around and blame it on her.
IT"S ALL BUSHS"S FAULT
May 24th, 2012
3:15 pm
IT”S ALL BUSHS”S FAULT..
Tiberius - Banned from Bookman's and proud of it!
May 24th, 2012
3:19 pm
“Do tell us, Kyle, about those Republican plans to slash that spending growth and please be specific.”
Ten Percent, I suggest you peruse this site:
http://www.roadmap.republicans.budget.house.gov/
Google is your friend.
Now with Ten Percent Fewer Calories
May 24th, 2012
3:19 pm
Major Contributors to Deficit Spending. If you wish to remove the word “deficit” from that statement, the solution is simple–pay for wars and tax cuts and prescription benefits etc., rather than borrow money to cover the costs.
AmVet
May 24th, 2012
3:22 pm
IT”S ALL BUSHS”S FAULT.
Nope, not in light of the irrefutable fact that I posted earlier:
In January 2009 when he left office (in disgrace) his approval rating among Republicans was a jawdropping 75%!
It is actually more correct to write that for Republicans, NOTHING IS BUSH’S FAULT.
Now with Ten Percent Fewer Calories
May 24th, 2012
3:23 pm
TB,
I could alternatively consider this googled source. Give it try. It actually compares the different plans.
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.
@@
May 24th, 2012
6:39 pm
So Obama buys on the lay-away plan?
I haven’t done this in a long time….but to those (Hello AmVet) who claim conservatives were silent while Bush spent beyond our means?
By Jim S
October 16, 2008 6:55 PM | Link to this
Okay Louis, let’s look at things: Iraq and $10 Billion a month, probably not, I;d prefer the Iraqi government take on a larger share of the costs of our being there. +1 Democrat
Obama being the cause, partially, he was and is still involved with ACORN who, together with Carter, Clinton, Dodd, Franks and a few others rigged the system so that unqualified buyers could get mortgages. That they had no realistic way to pay the loan back was immaterial. +1 Republican
Bush and Republican controlled Congress, yes, but also remember 9/11 and the immediate recession the country went into. Interest rates were lowered, money came into the market and went right back out. Jobs were created and things were going fine. That said, Republicans also spent like drunken sailors while they were in control. Since then the Democrat controlled congress hasn’t exactly shown themselves to be any less frugal with OUR money. Call it a draw.
Another conservative responding to a liberal’s claim that it was the Iraq war that did the Republicans in in 2006.
By Anonymous
November 12, 2007 10:51 AM | Link to this
RB: Riiiight…. like it was reckless spending that got the Republicans trounced last November, and not the Iraq disaster. Suuure it was.
Keep thinkin’ that—and the Right will keep losing elections
By RB from Gwinnett
November 12, 2007 1:36 PM
Anonymous @ 10:51
You’re naive if you think everyone who doesn’t approve of the job Bush is doing feels that way for the same reason you do. In fact, that’s what is almost laughable about the continued rantings of the libs for his low approval ratings. It would be laughable if not for the sick nature of the comments from you libs. In light of that, it’s just not funny, it’s an ebarrasment to this nation.
Bush and the R led congress over the last 7 years have spent like drunken sailors and allowed the left to drag us closer to socialism without putting up any resistance. That’s one of the reasons you’re hearing talk of there being a split in the party and a 3rd candidate emerging. If you want to bash Bush for that and the wide open southern border, I’m with you. He’s been a big dissapointment in those areas. In fact, he’s acting too dang much like a democrat for most of the R party.
I cannot for the life of me figure out why you libs can’t see that socialism is a failure everywhere it occurs, yet you continue to drive us headlong into it.
Neglected to include the individual links. Feel free to find them within an assortment.
http://www.google.com/search?q=ajc%2Bluckovich%2Brw%2Bdrunken+sailor&sourceid=ie7&rls=com.microsoft:en-us:IE-SearchBox&ie=&oe=
A lot of us were complaining. RW, and yes…even Andy.
In 2006, the house went to the Democrats. Bush was hobbled. It was the spending what done ‘em in.
The Fresh Prince of Bill Ayers
May 24th, 2012
6:39 pm
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
President? He’s a whiny,lazy, golfing playboy that has produced virtually nothing to hang his hat on but blame others. He’s adept at campaigning however. You can take your poll numbers, put them in your glass pipe and smoke it, because everyday people who are not african american think this guy is a buffoon.
Martin Williams
May 24th, 2012
6:40 pm
True that Regan and George W Bush spent more that Clinton/Obama. But Regan and Clinton raised taxes to offset the spending. Today, the GOP idiots want to spend more money in all these wars plus a tax break. Then the Tea Party fools always talk about cut spending.
Tiberius - Banned from Bookman's and proud of it!
May 24th, 2012
6:51 pm
Martin Williams, the truth is that while both raised taxes, neither generated revenue enough to offset the spending (in Reagan’s case he had other tax cuts to go along with the small raise in taxes). Their terms were in two different eras and had two different reasons for their economic and fiscal policies.
In Reagan’s case, he needed spending to go up bankrupt the last remaining enemy who could destroy s with the push of a button. While it didn’t happen on his watch, his policies killed the Soviet Union and made this whole world safer. In order to accomplish that, Tip O’Neill extracted increased spending on social programs which raised spending even higher. Revenues also increased but it was more attributed to a robust economy than it was tax hikes.
In Clinton’s case, he was forced to spend less due to a Republican Congress that fought him on most spending issues. H e was also the beneficiary of an expanding economy that increased revenues, even if that economy was fueled by an artificial dot-com bubble and not due to any particular fiscal policy.
Apples and Oranges
May 24th, 2012
6:54 pm
I see Thulsa has engaged in the false equivalency he is famous for, if we are going to throw out a conservative’s view, then let’s toss a liberals…..make that two liberals. On a discussion related to the budget and economics he equates the irrelevance of referencing a satirical polemic like Ann Coulter who has degrees in History and Law with that of referencing Paul Krugman, who has an economics degree from Yale, and a PHD in economics from MIT, has worked in the Reagan white house, with foreign Central banks and has taught at London School of Economics, Yale, Stanford, and Princeton. Oh, and he won one of those Nobel prize thingies that I am sure you will try and discount, but before you do, Milton Friedman and Fredrich August Von Heyek also won the same award.
Cal
May 24th, 2012
6:55 pm
Reagan agreed to a compromise which included raising taxes in exchange for the democrats reducing some spending. In typical democrat style, the taxes were implemented, but the spending cuts never materialized. The truth is in the congressional record, should you care to do the research.
When Reagan took office in 1980, there were 16 tax brackets ranging from 0% ($3,400 or less) to 70% ($215,400). When Reagan left office in 1988 there were 2 brackets: 15% (income up to $29,750) and 28% for income over $29,750). Coincidentally, revenues increased from $517.1 billion to $909.2 billion. Sadly, the democrat controlled congress spent at an even faster rate (from a -$73.8 billion dollar deficit in 1980 to -$221.2 billion dollar deficit in 1986).
Facts really are stubborn things.
md
May 24th, 2012
6:59 pm
““Conservative” registered independents are typically former Republicans with slightly more shame than the the still Republican registered “conservatives”.”
Gotta link?
I’ve been on this planet for awhile now, and “typical” is a matter of perspective……hate to say it now, but I even voted for Clinton…..
Apples and Oranges
May 24th, 2012
7:03 pm
Cal, let me get this straight, with Reagan, it was the Democratically controlled Congress that increased spending, with Obama, it is not the current GOP controlled Congress that is to blame for the continued high spending, but it lies with the President?
Who gets the blame with Bush and the GOP congress from 2000-2006?
md
May 24th, 2012
7:08 pm
“Nobel prize thingies that I am sure you will try and discount, but before you do, Milton Friedman and Fredrich August Von Heyek also won the same award.”
Actually, Nobel discounted it themselves when they gave one to Obama for doing next to nothing…..the meaning of “extraordinary” changed forever…….
RGB
May 24th, 2012
7:25 pm
Apples and Oranges,
So your point is….deficits are good and helpful…..or destructive and country-ending?
Do you not understand that the USA is the new Greece?
Ronald Reagan is dead. George Bush is out of office.
The spending is real. Obama had both houses of Congress for 3 years. He OWNS the economy, the deficit, the debt, the (undereported unemployment rate), the foreclosure of millions of homes, the destruction of our health care system, and a sad and hopeless retirement for millions of Americans.
Obama’s deficits are unpatriotic! He said he would halve them in his first term.
Perhaps you like, embrace, encourage, and defend that.
Real Americans do not.
Apples and Oranges
May 24th, 2012
7:33 pm
RGB,
I hate deficits and have been complaining about them since 2001 when we squandered our surplus. I absolutely believe that we have to address the deficit and then ultimately the debt. I was just sorry that so many conservatives did not share my concern until 2009. Where we likely disagree is how we approach this. I personally believe it must come from a combination of spending cuts and revenue increases. It must also be done in a manner to not endanger today’s fragile economy as revenue growth is the most important element to bringing our fiscal house in order.
Read Simon Johnson’s recent book White House Burning on the subject, it is very informative and even handed view of the subject.
Oduma & Dumber Company
May 24th, 2012
7:37 pm
Who has spent five trillion dollars in less than four years as President to lose millions of jobs?
What political party hasALL OF AMERICA’S WARS to their credit, precluding only one, during the entire last century?
Now Marxist Fascist Socialist Democrats, what were you saying about, Tea Party people, about Reagan, or Bush?
You lousy liars are living proof of why Comrade Vladimir Lenin wouldn’t have wasted his time to call any of you idiots, useful!
Lil' Barry Bailout (Revised Downward)
May 24th, 2012
7:40 pm
Hee hee! Kyle has cleverly disguised a moron test as a legitimate post.
The Obozo receptacles all failed.
Apples and Oranges
May 24th, 2012
7:40 pm
To be clear revenue growth will clearly increase tremendously with an improved economy, just like expenses for safety net programs will decline. The current president may get some blame for not improving the economy fast enough, but should not be blamed for causing the recession, nor passing laws that increased the safety net that was in place when he took office other than a few extensions of the unemployment tax that is a fraction of today’s deficit.
md
May 24th, 2012
7:40 pm
“In mostly party-line roll calls, senators voted 62-34 against the GOP package and 51-43 for the Democratic version, with each falling short of the 60 votes needed for approval. Though both defeats were preordained, the twin votes gave lawmakers from each party a chance to show they favor easing students’ financial burdens — and potential grist for campaign ads accusing the other side of opposing the effort.
The Senate planned to leave town later Thursday for a Memorial Day recess running through next week.”
And the misfits do it again……with that last sentence taking precedent over the rest.
Thulsa Doom
May 24th, 2012
7:41 pm
Oh noes! Apples and oranges with the false equivalence card. As for Krugman his Nobel piece on economics was a fine piece indeed according to some folks. Kinda funny that he was awarded the economic prize in 2008 for work done so many years earlier. No politics there huh? Reminds me a lot of NObama’s Nobel peace prize.
Apples and Oranges
May 24th, 2012
7:42 pm
I am out, I see that the blissfully ignorant have arrived on the board.
Thulsa Doom
May 24th, 2012
7:44 pm
“The current president may get some blame for not improving the economy fast enough, but should not be blamed for causing the recession”
I hope you’re not talking about the 07 recession under W. Good God sir who the hell would blame O for a recession that started 2 years before he took office. Geez.
The Pathology of a Liar « Katz Porch
May 24th, 2012
7:55 pm
[...] http://blogs.ajc.com/kyle-wingfield/2012/05/24/about-the-idea-that-obamas-spending-has-been-tame/ [...]
Cal
May 24th, 2012
7:59 pm
Apples and Oranges @ 7:03:
Cal, let me get this straight, with Reagan, it was the Democratically controlled Congress that increased spending, with Obama, it is not the current GOP controlled Congress that is to blame for the continued high spending, but it lies with the President?
Did you even read Kyle’s column?
………..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.
Who gets the blame with Bush and the GOP congress from 2000-2006?
The GOP did. It’s why they lost the house.
Tiberius - Banned from Bookman's and proud of it!
May 24th, 2012
7:59 pm
Apples and Oranges, technically, we haven’t had a surplus in decades, and certainly not one during Clinton’s years as has been touted by many liberals (and some conservatives giving credit to a GOP Congress).
That so-called surplus was nothing but smoke and mirrors accounting tricks. While the deficit was reduced significantly through the efforts of Congress more than Clinton (but both contributed), there was never any surplus.
Oduma & Dumber Company
May 24th, 2012
8:01 pm
And who would blame W for a housing bubble that started nearly a decade before he took office that truly brought on this recession?
Perhaps the same socialist excuse makers that defend lil barry oblamer and demand that people who can’t afford to make a down payment on a pup-tent be given a half million dollar house to call their home on what amounts to a LIAR’S LOAN because it is fair or it serves Social Justice?
Blame Bush all you want Marxist Democrats but you anti-constitutional creeps are just as guilty and probably more so than any Republican you can drag up.
The difference between Kyle and the rest of the honest conservatives is that we can admit to our fiscal mistakes, like W. but you lairs never will.
Terrence
May 24th, 2012
8:10 pm
I hate deficits and have been complaining about them since 2001 when we squandered our surplus.
The government can have a surplus even if it has trillions in debt, but it cannot have a surplus if that debt increased every year, which it did under Clinton.
There was no surplus.
Tiberius - Banned from Bookman's and proud of it!
May 24th, 2012
8:14 pm
Regardless of who actually caused the Great Recession (it wasn’t Bush nor his policies), the American people do blame him, and as a result blame the GOP. This makes it a harder hill to climb for Mitt Romney.
Fortunately, this current President has been so unspectacular in accomplishing anything of substance as far as turning the economy around that he’s given a party largely blamed for the last fiasco a fighting chance to take back the White House in just 4 interminably long years.
Hopefully the American electorate can separate the nonsense from the liberal media and do some thinking before casting their vote in 2012. They sure goofed in 2008.
@@
May 24th, 2012
8:17 pm
Who butters Nutter’s bread?
Who holds Nutter’s nuts?
Rex Nutting up for Obama.
schnirt
Today’s Rebellion News – May 24th 2012 | Rebellion News
May 24th, 2012
8:20 pm
[...] About the idea that Obama’s spending has been tame [...]
@@
May 24th, 2012
8:24 pm
Romney acknowledges Bush’s debt.
Mitt Romney Attacks Obama for Failing to Cut Debt Amassed Under Bush
Romney, speaking the day after Bush made an impromptu endorsement of him as he boarded an elevator at an event in Washington, said that while Republicans and Democrats share blame for running up deficits, Obama has made the problem worse.
“It sure is true that you can’t blame one party or the other for all the debts that this country has, because both parties, in my opinion, spent too much and borrowed too much when they were in power,”–Washington Post
MarkV
May 24th, 2012
8:25 pm
Quite a funny blog today. First Kyle recalls the dictum that there are lies, damned lies, and statistics, and follows that by using — (lies, damned lies, and) statistics. And after all the juggling of numbers, all he can come up with in his (disputed) use of lies, damned lies, and statistics is that Obama may be close to some other big spenders – this after all that Republican yelling and outrage about Obama being far away the biggest spender of all times. Real funny.
Tiberius - Banned from Bookman's and proud of it!
May 24th, 2012
8:45 pm
MaryV, you really need to read Kyle’s articles more closely. More importantly, you really need to understand what is being written and focus on the actual topic.
There is no doubt that Obama is the biggest spender of all time – his deficits have added nearly $5 trillion in debt to the nation in less than 4 years. That is almost 1/3rd of this nations entire debt total.
The crux of the article was pointing out inconsistencies in Nutting’s figures, and showing that Obama’s increases in spending were not as small as Nutting claimed them to be. As usual, the libs on this blog attempted to deflect from the issue by continuously pointing out the spending increases of Republican Presidents, but that was not the focus of the article. The focus was, and remains, that Obama’s increases in spending are not as small as Nutting alleges.
Please pay better attention next time, MaryV, so that I don’t have to bully you by debunking more of your nonsense.
Tiberius - Banned from Bookman's and proud of it!
May 24th, 2012
9:10 pm
And let’s be honest here. Nutting was trying to make the case that Obama has been downright frugal in his spending using only percentage of increase as a metric – NOT the totality of his spending.
Nutting’s premise was false from the start. Another failed attempt to prop up this disaster of a President during a tough election campaign with more lies.
md
May 24th, 2012
9:22 pm
I bet the other presidents would look pretty frugal too if one were to leave out an entire year………
Tiberius - Banned from Bookman's and proud of it!
May 24th, 2012
9:34 pm
md @ 9:22:
Tiberius - Banned from Bookman's and proud of it!
May 24th, 2012
9:35 pm
Well, another effective shutdown of the illogical liberal noise machine.
I’m off to an early bedtime.
You libs
May 24th, 2012
9:38 pm
These graphs that represent the figures of the Congressional Budget Office are just as phony as that bogus long-form Hawaii birth certificate that was recently provided and all of the testimony of the bogus commission that Abraham Lincoln signed into law known as the National Academy of Sciences with respect to that mother of all hoaxes, global warming.
Hey, we’re not stupid, you know?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bob-cesca/the-truth-about-the-presi_1_b_1540698.html
Dusty
May 24th, 2012
9:43 pm
Nutting! I don’t believe nutting he says!
I already knew and everybody I know is quite aware that the US has a huge deficit and it has gotten larger under Presdient Obama. No matter who, where or what, Obama has been in charge for almost four years and he cannot escape the responsibility of increased indebtedness.
It’s his baby now and he has done little or nutting about it. Increasing that debt is downright nutty.
Hillbilly D
May 24th, 2012
9:57 pm
Only one President ever paid off the national debt, Andrew Jackson.
Dusty
May 24th, 2012
10:00 pm
AWWWWW
The Braves lost again 6-3. Looks like I will have to go tell them that they are supposed to HIT the ball. Yuu know. With the bat! Over the fence! Outta the field! 400 feet!
And for goodness sake, take your vitamins! They’ve got more aches and pains than my ol’ granny, bless her heart!
But I love ‘em. Go BRAVES!!
Dusty
May 24th, 2012
10:03 pm
Hillbilly D 9:57
What was the national debt then? $3.50 ?
hryder
May 24th, 2012
10:08 pm
Lots of someones are much less than honest, from my point of view the supporters of Obama being the least honest. The reasons being ignorance, stupidity, or blatant racism resulting in saying any and every thing in attempting to buy votes to enable the entertainer in chief to remain in the Oval Office. When repeated often enough the purveyors of untruths actually believe what they have been spewing is the truth. VOTE OUT OF OFFICE ALL INCUMBENTS, ESPECIALLY THE BIG O, IN THE NOVEMBER ELECTIONS AND IMPEACH THE NEW INS WHEN THE FIRST VERIFIABLE LIE COMES FROM THEIR MOUTH IN PUBLIC!
Hillbilly D
May 24th, 2012
10:18 pm
Dusty
It was about $58 million, when he took office.
Dusty
May 24th, 2012
10:29 pm
Wow Hillbilly! Andrew Jackson did more than I thought he did. That’s a tidy sum,’ specially in those days. Wonder how he did it?
Shhh… better not mention a president that paid off the national debt. Some Democrat here will say that is what Obama is going to do. Oh yes!! Uh huh..
Dusty
May 24th, 2012
10:40 pm
Hillbilly D
I forgot to tell you that I planted the tomato plants yesterday. They were getting a bit spindly. I tried to put in a lot of things you said to pep ‘em up. Anyway, they were trying to stand straight today. But I need to put more dirt around them. Maybe I’ll have a big crop…..by Thanksgiving.
I’m trying for optimism but I never have much luck.
G’nite…
MarkV
May 24th, 2012
10:43 pm
Tiberius @8:45 pm
When I need your advice, I will ask for it. But don’t hold your breath.
Jm
May 24th, 2012
11:33 pm
Good column Kyle
The fantasy that Obama has fiscal restraint is…… Wait for it…. A fantasy
Progressive Humanist
May 24th, 2012
11:51 pm
Sure- Kyle, the guy with a BA in journalism, has magically transformed himself into an economic policy wonk. That’s credible. Except it’s not and neither is his “analysis”. But it’s what the right wing nutjobs want to hear.
DAVETV
May 25th, 2012
1:51 am
I’ve been on the Obama frugal diet for a couple months now and it really seems to be working. I’ve gained 12 pounds but without the diet I would have gained 11.
LIVE AT FIVE – 05.25.12 : The Other McCain
May 25th, 2012
5:27 am
[...] Brawls Over Language Bill US To Vet Free Syrian Army, May Begin Arms Transfers BLOGS & STUFF Kyle Wingfield: About That Idea That Obama’s Spending Has Been Tame… Jim Pethokoukis: The Stunning Chart That Shows Obama’s Spending Binge Really Happened Power [...]
Samantha
May 25th, 2012
7:27 am
If all Bookman does is cut and paste the latest talking points from Rachel Maddow or other loon, why does the AJC pay him?
I Report (-: You Whine )-: mmm, mmmm, mmmmm! Just sayin...
May 25th, 2012
7:36 am
“I spent some time with the highest tenured faculty member at Chicago Law a few months back,” Mr. Ross wrote in March 2010. “According to my professor friend, [Obozo] had the lowest intellectual capacity in the building. … The other professors hated him because he was lazy, unqualified,”
He still has the “lowest intellectual capacity in the building,” even when he’s at a bus stop.
tiredofIT
May 25th, 2012
7:43 am
“The fantasy that Obama has fiscal restraint is” and the financial collapse under Bush the fall of 2008 never happened. 750,000 in jobs losses per month. Yes, republicans have all the answers.
JDW
May 25th, 2012
8:14 am
@Kyle…you are double dipping. Lets say your $311 billion number is right. You can reduce the baseline but you can’t reduce the baseline and then add the number to the next year. That’s double dipping. The numbers work out the same no matter which sheet I use.
Apples and Oranges
May 25th, 2012
8:38 am
I see there were a few conservative bloggers that have posted stories dismissing the fact that Clinton balanced the budget, I would gather that some of the right wing radio noise machine has been pushing that meme for awhile so as to not have their Presidents look like the prolific spenders that they are. Here is a non-partisan resource that refutes that assertion, I am happy to review a similar non-partisan source that supports the fact that Clinton never had a surplus.
http://www.factcheck.org/2008/02/the-budget-and-deficit-under-clinton/
Kyle Wingfield
May 25th, 2012
8:46 am
JDW: If we were comparing 2009 to 2010, you’d be right. But all we are trying to do is get the baseline right and then compare it to 2013, when that particular spending isn’t there any more.
md
May 25th, 2012
8:55 am
Clintons/our surplus was like me having 25k in my checking account…….yet my debt totals a couple million.
Perspective my dear Watson……….
Kyle Wingfield
May 25th, 2012
8:56 am
Humanist: It doesn’t take much of a wonk to look at a federal budget document with 40-50 lines. But if that’s the best counterargument you’ve got, don’t be surprised when people don’t find it credible.
Lil' Barry Bailout (Revised Downward)
May 25th, 2012
9:05 am
To paraphrase Jeff Foxworthy, if you think Obozo’s spending has been tame, you just might be a moron.
No matter how you measure it, by dollar amount, percent of GDP, size of the deficit, the conclusion is the same. Obozo’s spending is damaging the economy and is un-American.
Americans will deal with this disaster in November. Some Democrats will help.
Now with Ten Percent Fewer Calories
May 25th, 2012
9:15 am
I see Politifact has provided an analysis of those nasty spending habits and I see they have concluded that Obama and Eisenhower are by far the most frugal in the land.
Jack
May 25th, 2012
9:18 am
You better leave Miss Becky alone, Mr. Wingfield. She might suffer some kind of sinking spell.
Lil' Barry Bailout (Revised Downward)
May 25th, 2012
9:26 am
If you were confused and thought Politifact was non-partisan, their assessment of this issue should put that question to rest.
Kyle Wingfield
May 25th, 2012
9:30 am
Ten Percent: And, as I told Manny yesterday, Politifact is mostly correct, as far as it goes. The problem is that, like Nutting, it doesn’t go far enough (among other things: like Nutting, the Politifacters only added the stimulus to Obama’s ledger for FY09, not the supplemental spending bills I outlined in the OP).
It’s also worth noting that the claim Politifact checked is a slightly different one: “Mitt Romney is wrong to claim that spending under Obama has ‘accelerated at a pace without precedent in recent history,’ because it’s actually risen ’slower than at any time in nearly 60 years.’ ” That’s not the same claim that Nutting made, and which I’ve addressed here.
Apples and Oranges
May 25th, 2012
9:36 am
Lil’ Barry, would you be willing to share with us some of the non-partisan sources you rely upon when seeking information?
Nsnstv
May 25th, 2012
9:37 am
Fresh Price: because everyday people who are not african american think this guy is a buffoon.
Way to show your true colors.
JDW
May 25th, 2012
9:54 am
@Kyle…”JDW: If we were comparing 2009 to 2010, you’d be right. But all we are trying to do is get the baseline right and then compare it to 2013, when that particular spending isn’t there any more”
Correct…and when you do that the 2009 baseline using your sheet is $1,999,358. Projected 2013
is $2,294239. That equals raw growth of 14.75% over 4 years or 3.7% per year. That makes the first Obama term the second slowest growing term since 1980, trailing only Clinton’s first term.
The rest of the numbers using your sheet…
Reagan 1 29.72% Average 7.43%
Reagan 2 16.69% Average 4.17%
Bush 1 1 17.06% Average 4.26%
Clinton 1 4.79% Average 1.20%
Clinton 2 23.66% Average 5.91%
Bush 2 1 45.37% Average 11.34%
Bush 2 2 30.57% Average 7.64%
Obama 14.75% Average 3.69%
My orignal contention still holds…Obama/Clinton spend far less than Reagan/Bush.
Now with Ten Percent Fewer Calories
May 25th, 2012
9:58 am
Kyle,
Politifact applied a consistent methodology to all administrations that they evaluated and their end result appears to still support the claim that Obama, like Eisenhower, is more frugal than any president we have had for the last 60 years. “Mostly True” sounds pretty good to me. It beats Mittt’s “Pants on Fire” claim that spending under Obama has “accelerated at a pace without precedent in recent history,” by a long shot.
JDW
May 25th, 2012
10:00 am
BTW I also find it interesting that spending grows much faster in Clinton’s second term than it did in the first….after the much ballyhooed switch in Congressional majorities. That means that since 1980 the 2 Presidential terms that grew spending at the slowest rate had a Democratic President and Democratic Majorities for at least half the term.
Kind of points out the fallacy of Republican fiscal restraint now doesn’t it?
Kyle Wingfield
May 25th, 2012
10:02 am
Btw, the Washington Post’s fact-checker also examined Nutting’s numbers and found them lacking in much the same way I did.
Lil' Barry Bailout (Revised Downward)
May 25th, 2012
10:14 am
Apples and Oranges: Lil’ Barry, would you be willing to share with us some of the non-partisan sources you rely upon when seeking information?
——–
Certainly. TreasuryDirect.gov is a good one for spending and deficit numbers, and bls.gov for unemployment and jobs info. You must be new here to not have seen me link to these.
Tiberius - Banned from Bookman's and proud of it!
May 25th, 2012
10:16 am
The left’s (and sometimes right’s) inane ability to take one piece of a giant puzzle and call it complete is beyond compare.
You cannot use the term “frugal” and apply it to “rate of spending increase”. That is intellectually impossible.
It is frankly a shame that some of you people vote.
Lil' Barry Bailout (Revised Downward)
May 25th, 2012
10:18 am
Dear Moron:
In what way is spending $1.5 trillion more than you take in every year “frugal”?
Same question regarding spending 25% of GDP.
Kyle Wingfield
May 25th, 2012
10:20 am
JDW: Well, you’re doing something very different, because we can’t perform the same analysis and get such very different numbers.
As for Clinton’s second term: I noticed that, too. If you break it down by 2-year periods, you get:
1994-95: 0.8% annual growth
1996-97 (i.e., first GOP Congress): 0.9%
1998-99: 5.5%
2000-01: 6.2%
The biggest increases from period 2 to period 3 are Commerce and Housing Credit, 19.3% (almost all deposit insurance and mortgage credit…I told you eliminating this entire line item for all presidencies would skew the results!); Health, 19.2% (almost all “Health Care Services,” aka Medicaid); Agriculture, 15.6% (almost all subsidies).
md
May 25th, 2012
10:22 am
From Kyle’s link……but more than likely irrelevant to those that do not want to “see” it:
“One common way to measure federal spending is to compare it to the size of the overall U.S. economy. That at least puts the level into context, helping account for population growth, inflation and other factors that affect spending. Here’s what the White House’s own budget documents show about spending as a percentage of the U.S. economy (gross domestic product):
2008: 20.8 percent
2009: 25.2 percent
2010: 24.1 percent
2011: 24.1 percent
2012: 24.3 percent
2013: 23.3 percent
In the post-war era, federal spending as a percentage of the U.S. economy has hovered around 20 percent, give or take a couple of percentage points. Under Obama, it has hit highs not seen since the end of World War II — completely the opposite of the point asserted by Carney. Part of this, of course, is a consequence of the recession, but it is also the result of a sustained higher level of spending.”
JDW
May 25th, 2012
10:22 am
@Kyle…and Politifact rates the analysis mostly true…only mostly because they say Congress didn’t receive a mention. Not surprisingly I think the Post analysis is flawed. It is using different assumptions for the 2013 spending number which assume only half a fix. Net net I think that the CBO estimate used by Nutting will more likely be closer to the truth. As for the $140 billion number they mentioned…I used your $311 billion number and still came up with the second lowest increase since 1980.
In either case the story that Obama has spent at a rate unprecedented in history is total hogwash.
Lil' Barry Bailout (Revised Downward)
May 25th, 2012
10:26 am
Obozo is spending at rates not seen since WWII.
You’re a denier, JDW.
Kyle Wingfield
May 25th, 2012
10:28 am
JDW: And I never said “unprecedented in history.” Maybe Romney did, and if he did, he was wrong — arguably no more wrong than the typical political hyperbole (”most transparent administration in history” being one other example from some other guy running for president), but then pointing out hyperbole is one big reason the fact-checkers exist.
Btw, your line “Net net I think that the CBO estimate used by Nutting will more likely be closer to the truth” is one reason it’s silly to look at FY13 estimates. That fiscal year doesn’t begin for another four months! Why not just compare Obama’s annual average growth rate through FY12?
Hmmm…maybe because the CBO projected baseline for FY13 makes his numbers look better, albeit in a meaningless way?
Kyle Wingfield
May 25th, 2012
10:29 am
Also: As I pointed out, even the $311B number doesn’t cover everything. You also have to include the $108.8B in supplemental spending he signed.
Tiberius - Banned from Bookman's and proud of it!
May 25th, 2012
10:29 am
Kyle and JDW are simply arguing how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.
And JDW goes off the cliff with his last line: “In either case the story that Obama has spent at a rate unprecedented in history is total hogwash.”
Sorry, JDW, but when you’re responsible for $5 trillion in new debt in just three years (1/3rd of this nations total debt), your spending rate is, in fact, unprecedented.
Kyle Wingfield
May 25th, 2012
10:31 am
Sorry, Tib, but I disagree. This is important, because the reasons for the new debt are important. Conservatives say high spending; liberals say low taxes. To the degree tax revenues have been lower because more people are out of work, they are partially correct. But the other part of the equation informs us as to how much we should cut spending or raise tax rates.
So, this isn’t just meaningless budgetary theology.
Lil' Barry Bailout (Revised Downward)
May 25th, 2012
10:38 am
The libtards arguing this one remind me of the idiot I was debating a while back who was trying so awfully hard to argue that there really ARE 57 states.
Tiberius - Banned from Bookman's and proud of it!
May 25th, 2012
10:41 am
But you’re not talking budgetary theology, Kyle. At least not with JDW.
This is simple stuff. If you expect to take in X, spend X. Don’t spend X+anything. As that economist Peter – somebody says, “It’s really not that complicated!”
Lil' Barry Bailout (Revised Downward)
May 25th, 2012
10:45 am
Tib, it’s important to smack down the libtard nonsense like the above, as the Democrat sheeple are so unable to think critically. Left unchallenged, they’ll believe anything the Obozo campaign or media (oops, redundant) feed them.
md
May 25th, 2012
10:45 am
Here’s a fact for consumption…….adding 1.5T to the debt each and every year is heading in the wrong direction……I don’t care which “side” one wants to choose.
JDW
May 25th, 2012
10:49 am
@Kyle…”Well, you’re doing something very different, because we can’t perform the same analysis and get such very different numbers.”
It’s not rocket science…
Blank Lines 13,16,23,27,33,40,44,52,60,65,73,78,88,99,105,115
They are Totals or Subtotal lines and must be eliminated to sum the sheet without double counting
Blank Lines 48,49,53,54,91,92
They are off/on budget information lines that should not be in the total
Blank line 80 Medicare
Blank line 90 Social Security
Sum at line 116 eliminating 900 Net Interest, 920 Allowances and 950 Undistributed Receipts.
Subtract 311,000 from subtotal in 2009
JDW
May 25th, 2012
10:54 am
@Kyle…I agree that looking at 2013 projections is a forecasting exercise. If you want to do another analysis on Obama’s annual average growth rate through FY12 you could but then you have to adjust each year for the one time spending. The original $140 billion number you question is the amount of stimulus spending that actually occurred in 2009. The rest of it is spread throughout 2010 to 2012. To get at the first number without one time expenses you have to go to 2013.
JDW
May 25th, 2012
10:58 am
@Tiberius…”This is simple stuff. If you expect to take in X, spend X. Don’t spend X+anything. As that economist Peter – somebody says, “It’s really not that complicated!””
The root point of this whole exercise is that the biggest offenders to your philosophy since 1980 are Reagan, Bush and Bush…why you feel the need to give someone espousing the exact same policies another run is beyond me.
Kyle Wingfield
May 25th, 2012
10:59 am
JDW: That’s why I used the $311B number, which is net additional spending for TARP and the stimulus in FY09 vs. FY13 (projected).
Lil' Barry Bailout (Revised Downward)
May 25th, 2012
11:03 am
Reagan, Bush, and Bush never ran, much less proposed, Obozo-sized trillion-plus deficits.
Get a grip, denier.
JDW
May 25th, 2012
11:05 am
@Kyle…”This is important, because the reasons for the new debt are important. Conservatives say high spending; liberals say low taxes. To the degree tax revenues have been lower because more people are out of work, they are partially correct. But the other part of the equation informs us as to how much we should cut spending or raise tax rates. So, this isn’t just meaningless budgetary theology.”
I completely agree with that assessment of importance but not with this bit…”Conservatives say high spending; liberals say low taxes. ”
Fact is that parity was established during the Clinton years at +/- 20% of GDP. Today spending is in the 23% of GDP range and taxes are around 14.5%. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that both have to move. By and large the Democrats understand and agree with that notion. However they are blocked at every turn by a Grover Norquist led bout of mass insanity among Republicans that can’t seem to understand that concept.
Kyle Wingfield
May 25th, 2012
11:12 am
Aha, I didn’t eliminate lines 920 or 950. Why did you?
Kyle Wingfield
May 25th, 2012
11:28 am
JDW: Fact is, that 20% of GDP in revenues has only been reached only three times in our history, and only once since the end of WW2. That would be 2000, at the peak of the tech bubble, when capital gains tax revenues peaked. What you didn’t mention is that spending when “parity was established during the Clinton years” was 19.1% of GDP (1998), 18.5% (1999) and 18.2% (2000).
Given those facts, I find it irresponsible to plan for revenues of 20% of GDP. And as this chart shows, this historical limit on revenues as a percentage of the economy has held true regardless of the top marginal income tax rate.
JDW
May 25th, 2012
11:31 am
920 has no data until 2012 and then it is an accrual of disaster funds and budget cap offsets…not likely to even happen but really has no effect.
950 is intergovernmental transfers and sale of assets. Basically revenue offsets that should be in collections not netted against expenses.
Kyle Wingfield
May 25th, 2012
11:34 am
JDW: Well, they must have a reason for listing it in spending rather than revenues.
JDW
May 25th, 2012
11:35 am
@Kyle…yes they do…to disguise spending.
JDW
May 25th, 2012
11:40 am
@Kyle…
A) I and many others don’t buy into Hauser’s Law. I don’t believe it works that way.
B) Clinton clearly proved that raising taxes had no dampening effect.
C) I said +/- 20% and is there somthing wrong with spending being less than revenues? We do have a debt to pay off. Demographically spending due to population age will be higher in the next 20 or so years and then the cycle will turn down.
D) If you want to talk irresponsible lets chat about revenues at 14% of GDP.
Kyle Wingfield
May 25th, 2012
11:55 am
JDW: Set spending at 18.5-19%, and we should be able to balance the budget over the course of the business cycle. Set it at 20%, and we will run a deficit 49 years out of 50. In fact, I would go so far as to say you could get a restoration of Clinton-era tax rates through Congress if it came with a spending cap of 18.5-19%.
And you know as well as I do that a) revenues came close to 15%, but never to 14%, and b) even that level is more a reflection of high unemployment rather than the rate. Revenues averaged 18% of GDP from 2005-08, i.e. under the current tax rates. Which is within about half a percentage point of the 50-year average.
Lil' Barry Bailout (Revised Downward)
May 25th, 2012
12:04 pm
You’re right about one thing, JDW. We should all be embarrassed that we’ve allowed the government to take 14% or more of all income earned by Americans.
It’s the spending, stupid.
JDW
May 25th, 2012
12:48 pm
@Kyle…”And you know as well as I do that a) revenues came close to 15%, but never to 14%, and b) even that level is more a reflection of high unemployment rather than the rate. Revenues averaged 18% of GDP from 2005-08, i.e. under the current tax rates. Which is within about half a percentage point of the 50-year average.”
I saw a 14.5% number somewhere but here are the numbers from the historical record.
Revenue as a % of GDP
1997 19.2
1998 19.9
1999 19.8
2000 20.6
2001 19.5
2002 17.6
2003 16.2
2004 16.1
2005 17.3
2006 18.2
2007 18.5
2008 17.6
2009 15.1
2010 15.1
2011 15.4
As you can see over the last three years it has been solidly in the 15’s. But to the important point, from 1997 to 2001 revenues averaged 19.8% of GDP. “Coincidentally” the aggregate budget surplus for those years is $53 billion dollars. That would be the only such surplus performance in the last 50 years.
From 2002 to 2007, after Duhbya’s folly, revenues averaged 17.4% of GDP and not surprisingly aggregate deficits amounted to $215 billion.
So I ask you which model should we pursue.
-The fifty year average that has never led to a balanced budget?
-The Duhbya path that clearly led us astray?
-The only one that has worked in the last 50 years…revenues and expenses at +/- 20%?
Lil' Barry Bailout (Revised Downward)
May 25th, 2012
12:51 pm
Yep, all we need for JDW’s plan to work is another Internet bubble economy.
Oh, and thanks for showing how Our President Bush’s 2003 tax cuts increased revenue!
JDW
May 25th, 2012
12:56 pm
BTW…”In fact, I would go so far as to say you could get a restoration of Clinton-era tax rates through Congress if it came with a spending cap of 18.5-19%.”
Are you telling Grover?
JDW
May 25th, 2012
1:17 pm
@LBB…”Oh, and thanks for showing how Our President Bush’s 2003 tax cuts increased revenue!”
You mean after he reduced it?
Lil' Barry Bailout (Revised Downward)
May 25th, 2012
1:31 pm
The dot-bomb bubble burst reduced it. Our President Bush fixed it with his revenue-increasing, unemployment-reducing tax cuts.
Too bad Dodd and Frank insisted on “rolling the dice” and the housing market melted down. Our President Bush had to fix that, too.
wrick
May 25th, 2012
2:06 pm
JDW: ‘But to the important point, from 1997 to 2001 revenues averaged 19.8% of GDP.’
True, but this was largely due to the Gingrich-Clinton Capital Gains rate cut in 1997 and the Internet bubble. Look at Clinton’s first years on office and you will see revenue of 18% of GDP — much the same as GW Bush from 2005-2007. This means that despite the path under Bush ‘that led us astray’ the % revenue numbers were about the same as under Clinton prior to his tax cut.
Also, while % of GDP is a good metric to use, note that under GW Bush we at least experienced significant growth in GDP with his tax cuts — versus low growth for the last few years despite huge increases in deficit spending. So not only is Obama spending too much, the result of the spending is ineffective as we have low growth — while under Bush, while I would also say we spent too much, at least we saw much higher growth numbers.
Tiberius - Banned by Bookman and proud of it!
May 25th, 2012
2:13 pm
JDW, your issue is with Republican presidents increasing spending more than Obama. The gist of the two articles is that Nutting is trying to make the case that Obama is frugal when he is not, and Kyle is showing the numbers Nutting used were wrong.
Bottom line Obama is as profligate a spender as any other president and even more so because he doesn’t had the revenue to cover it.
JDW
May 25th, 2012
2:20 pm
@Tiberius…my issue is with Republicans beginning with Reagan selling us a bill of goods (which quite frankly I bought until 1994/1995) that has by in large led to the current situation. The only time in the last 32 years it has worked right was when Clinton was President and the underpinnings for that (tax levels and PAYGO) were established prior to 1994. Duhbya led us to ruin and after a whole lot of agony we are slowly recovering.
To me putting another Republican, espousing the same bill of goods, in charge is sheer lunacy. Would I rather Obama do some things differently, O’ he!! yes but when compared to the alternative history is my guide.
JDW
May 25th, 2012
2:23 pm
BTW, frugal was Jay’s word…Nutting simply pointed out that Romney’s characterization of Obama as “accelerating federal spending at a pace without precedent in recent history” was and is hogwash…or yet another Republican bill of goods.
wrick
May 25th, 2012
2:41 pm
I don’t follow the ‘bill of goods’ argument. The only times we have had 19%+ of GDP in tax revenue prior to Clinton 1997-2000 was Carter in the late 70’s — and the economy was in the tank at that time. Even during the 1950’s with 90%+ top marginal rates, we did not break 18%.
Under what JDW describes as the disastrous GWB years we were over 18% for several years due to growth in the economy (I would argue due to tax cuts). With the same tax rates now, and with a 25% increase in Federal Govt spending in 2008-2009, we have huge deficits and only 15% of GDP in tax revenue coming in — yet somehow it’s a Republican bill of goods we need to watch?
Lil' Barry Bailout (Revised Downward)
May 25th, 2012
2:47 pm
Romney is correct. Obozo’s is spending faster than any president since FDR.
Americans will correct their mistake in November.
JDW
May 25th, 2012
2:56 pm
@wrick…you are only looking at income check the spending side of the ledger….from the folks that preach financial responsibility. At the same time these policies have led to the decimation of the middle class. We now have a greater share of income and assets congregated at the top of the spectrum than in our history and the gap is getting wider.
Duhbya’s folly took a government that was running in balance and created deficit spending anew. On top of that, my contention is that the absolute lack of attention to the day-to-day business of running a government enabled the financial meltdown we endured in 2007 forward.
JDW
May 25th, 2012
2:57 pm
@LBB…”Romney is correct. Obozo’s is spending faster than any president since FDR.”
And yet that has been shown to be absolutely false.
wrick
May 25th, 2012
3:38 pm
JDW: I believe the figures below are correct. First column is revenue as % of GDP, second is spending.
I agree Bush spent too much, but the % is barely higher than Clinton. Then after 2008, we go off the cliff with spending.
William J. Clinton
1994 18 21
1995 18.4 20.6
1996 18.8 20.2
1997 19.2 19.5
1998 19.9 19.1
1999 19.8 18.5
2000 20.6 18.2
2001 19.5 18.2
George W. Bush
2002 17.6 19.1
2003 16.2 19.7
2004 16.1 19.6
2005 17.3 19.9
2006 18.2 20.1
2007 18.5 19.7
2008 17.6 20.8
2009 15.1 25.2
Barack Obama
2010 15.1 24.1
2011 15.4 24.1
md
May 25th, 2012
4:03 pm
“At the same time these policies have led to the decimation of the middle class. We now have a greater share of income and assets congregated at the top of the spectrum than in our history and the gap is getting wider. ”
Using that talking point kills your credibility…….it does not take into account the role of a global economy, which quite frankly coincides with the stagnation of the middle class.
We do not live in a closed economy, so sighting numbers as if we do is faulty at best.
And the middle class is responsible for decimating the middle class…….consumers dictate wages, and if one wants to look at the correlation between wages and the increased consumption of foreign goods back in the 70’s, one would understand why wages are flat.
A $50 billion dollar a month trade imbalance over several decades will have an impact on wages…..and the middle class.
JDW
May 25th, 2012
4:09 pm
@wrick…”I agree Bush spent too much, but the % is barely higher than Clinton. Then after 2008, we go off the cliff with spending.”
Problem was he raised spending by 1% to 2% of GDP and cut revenues by the same ending up with a 3% to 5% deficit in place of a balanced budget. Then when the bottom dropped out and spending had to be increased yet again he had reduced the revenue generating capacity which would have mitigated the current deficit.
Of course there is the bit about being 60% to 70% accountable for the whole going off the cliff thing.
JDW
May 25th, 2012
4:18 pm
@MD…”A $50 billion dollar a month trade imbalance over several decades will have an impact on wages…..and the middle class.”
And yet strangely the spike in the trade deficit really takes off right around 2000….hummmmmm
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-states/balance-of-trade
md
May 25th, 2012
4:23 pm
A good graph that shows trade imbalance and real wages…..it is no coincidence:
http://www.epi.org/publication/webfeatures_snapshots_archive_02282001/
md
May 25th, 2012
4:26 pm
And notice how wages basically stopped increasing when we as a nation became a net importer vs a net exporter…………
JDW
May 25th, 2012
4:33 pm
@md…it is a good graph and a valid point. Please note that the decline coincides roughly with the 1980 rise of Reagan and the Republicans. In fact the only respite over those years seems to be in the later 90’s and more recently in 2009….coincidence? Nah…
md
May 25th, 2012
4:49 pm
“Please note that the decline coincides roughly with the 1980 rise of Reagan and the Republicans. ”
I can’t see much difference based on partisanship…….exporting has for the most part been going down since the 40’s and wages stagnated pretty much about the time we started buying all our Datsuns and Toyotas…………..
As I said, we are to blame more than anything…….don’t buy it, and it will not come…….
Lil' Barry Bailout (Revised Downward)
May 25th, 2012
4:57 pm
Sorry, JDW, but only the Democrat sheeple and Obozo receptacles think spending more as a percent of GDP than anyone since WWII and racking up $5 trillion in debt in less than four years is responsible.
Romney is correct.
To disagree is to deny reality.
JDW
May 25th, 2012
5:01 pm
@md…”As I said, we are to blame more than anything…….don’t buy it, and it will not come”
There is truth to that. Our fixation on low costs is part of the problem. However, I do think that there are ways we can bolster exports through policy and that seems to happen more in a Democratic Administration.
The other issue is that we don’t do a great job of measuring intellectual and financial exports. Take Google, or any other tech company, they have exported their business to every country and generate revenue in every country but it doesn’t show as an export.
JDW
May 25th, 2012
5:02 pm
@LBB…”deny reality”
Bubba, don’t make me laugh. You have no relation nor concept of reality.
md
May 25th, 2012
5:05 pm
“Take Google, or any other tech company, they have exported their business to every country and generate revenue in every country but it doesn’t show as an export.”
But it doesn’t show as an import either………..ipods are made in China, but the bulk of the profits show up in our gdp…..
Lil' Barry Bailout (Revised Downward)
May 25th, 2012
5:15 pm
The reality is that Obozo has added more to the debt in less than three years than Our President Bush did in eight.
Lil' Barry Bailout (Revised Downward)
May 25th, 2012
5:17 pm
’scuse me…it took less than four years, not three, for Obozo to add more to the national debt than Our President Bush did in eight.
Joseph Theranger
May 26th, 2012
1:27 pm
President Bush was not a conservative. If a true conservative decided that a war was worth waging, he should have asked for the people of the country to share in the suffering of the soldiers on the front line by having everyone back a plan that would pay for the cost of the war. The payment could have been in the form of service cutbacks or tax increases or both.
Medicare part D was hardly a conservative action and No Child Left Behind was a terrible example of an unfunded federal mandate so I agree that neither President Bush was a Predident about whom a conservative could get excited.
I now have to accuse myself of being very unconservative given what I am about to say. To get the country going in the right direction, we are going to have to cut spending and either raise tax rates or broaden the tax base (eliminate deductions, BTW, they are properly called deductions, not loopholes). The electorate will want to make sure that every American shares in the pain that will be required to get us back on track. Under President Reagan, the pain was an 18 month (or so) recession. I’m not sure what our pain will be but, whatever it is, it had better be shared pain.
wrick
May 29th, 2012
10:02 am
@JDW: “Then when the bottom dropped out and spending had to be increased yet again he had reduced the revenue generating capacity which would have mitigated the current deficit.”
He had ‘reduced the revenue generating capacity’ in some kind of permanent way by having it at 18+% rather than 19% under Clinton?
Bush’s 18%+ is in line with Clinton’s pre-1997 capital gains tax cut number. How did the same tax policies that had us at 18%+ in 2006 lead to 15% in 2009? It is not the GWB’s tax rates that led to the housing bust.
Regarding ‘”60% to 70% accountable” — you really believe the GWB tax cuts in 2001 and 2003 led to the housing bust and bank failures in 2008? GW is responsible for spending beyond what I would prefer but he is not responsible any more than is Clinton or GHW Bush for the housing mess.
Obama is responsible for continued huge deficits and failure to get the economy moving. Clearly, we would be far better off with 18%+ of GDP in tax revenue as we had under GW than 15% with Obama.