Obama spending binge never happened

Rex Nutting


Commentary: Government outlays rising at slowest pace since 1950s

May 22, 2012|Rex Nutting, MarketWatch





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WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — Of all the falsehoods told about President Barack Obama, the biggest whopper is the one about his reckless spending spree.

As would-be president Mitt Romney tells it: “I will lead us out of this debt and spending inferno.”

Almost everyone believes that Obama has presided over a massive increase in federal spending, an “inferno” of spending that threatens our jobs, our businesses and our children’s future. Even Democrats seem to think it’s true.

But it didn’t happen. Although there was a big stimulus bill under Obama, federal spending is rising at the slowest pace since Dwight Eisenhower brought the Korean War to an end in the 1950s.

Even hapless Herbert Hoover managed to increase spending more than Obama has.

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

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




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

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

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

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

Over Obama’s four budget years, federal spending is on track to rise from $3.52 trillion to $3.58 trillion, an annualized increase of just 0.4%.

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

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

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

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

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



http://articles.marketwatch.com/2012-05-22/commentary/31802270_1_spending-federal-budget-drunken-sailor

Simply put, there is no plan possible to fix the Federal government's budget, simply because it is impossible. There is so much owed that even if the government effectively disappeared and all tax revenue was applied to debt, it still would not be enough to catch up. Rather than assume the Federal government will continue, assume it wont, and plan accordingly. Plan to unite your communities towards self-sufficiency and self-defense, against enemies, both foreign and domestic.

I dont know of many countries on earth that are actually 'caught up'

most have debts and revenues, just like individuals have bills and income


when jobs start coming back to the US, and people have money to spend, we will begin a cycle of being better 'balanced'

If there was no debt, there would be no money because money is debt, with the people of America to be used as collateral. True statement. As for when jobs come back, they wont, until the dollar becomes recognized for what it is, worthless. As it stands now, the BRICS nations are about to create a super sovereign currency, and unlike many of the IMF based currencies, they are substantially more fiscally responsible. In fact, Russia's government does not owe anyone anything.

We can create revenue, however, which is resource based. Each of us has value, and can produce goods. In fact, we can do so without using the non-sovereign dollar. In addition to my own inventions, I also do a bit of gardening, and among which, tobacco will be one of my largest crops, using a method of vertical gardening of my own design, with a 10 fold increase of growing in the same land space. We can also recognize that WE are a people who need to work with each other, not against. Our communities as a rule have become so isolated that our enemies may well live next door, simply because we haven't bothered to try to work together.

Sorry,
Limbaugh took this piece of trash apart piece by piece yesterday.
These "facts" are simply false. Nice try though.

Obama has done one thing in his soon to end term, he has shown how bad a president can be.

funny... by spending more money than ever before, the liberals try to downplay it by saying it is "percentages"...

did hoover spend $3.63 trillion dollars, ever?

So we basically blew ourselves back to the stone age?

The fact remains that he overspent by more than bush did in 8 years. Why are you looking at percentages? If the person before me spends $1 and I spend $100 I just overspent by about $99 but it's 10,000%. Now if you spend $200 you just overspent me by almost the same amount but only 100% increase. The bigger the starting number the the lpeer the percentage of the same value increase

Obama sucks!

This is true.

Pretty much... yeh

Inflation.

Dollars are just not worth what they used to be, so no.

It shows that Hoover increased the federal budget from $3.1 billion in 1929, the year he took office (and the Great Depression began), to $4.7 billion in 1932, his last full year in office, and $4.6 billion in 1933, the year he left office. The budget deficit went from a surplus in 1928 to a deficit of $2.7 billion in 1932. Table 1.2 on page 24 of that document shows that government spending and deficits rose considerably as a percentage of the economy under Hoover.


http://www.openmarket.org/2011/11/21/obama-peddles-myths-about-the-great-depression-no-hoover-didnt-cut-taxes-or-spending/


http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/

so, 4.6 billion times 1579.5% the currant inflation rate from 1932,
would only be around 72 billion dollars. Obama spends that in a day, so inflation is not the factor here.

OMG!! Don't be so troubled my friend.Back in times people took care of each other. We will again.

Limbaugh began his career in radio as a teenager in 1967 in his hometown of Cape Girardeau, using the name Rusty Sharpe.[3][5] Limbaugh graduated from Cape Girardeau, Missouri Central High School, in 1969. Because of his parents' desire to see him attend college, he enrolled in Southeast Missouri State University but left the school after two semesters and one summer. According to his mother, "he flunked everything", and "he just didn't seem interested in anything except radio."[3]

so which part did this MATHEMATICAL AND FINANCIAL Genius prove wrong,,?

The following website explains why the original post in this thread is false and how the writer "fudged" the numbers to make Obama's numbers look better.

A brief quote: "The shocking, contrarian piece was widely circulated in liberal circles and was even cited on Wednesday by White House spokesman Jay Carney.

But there were a few problems with Nutting’s numbers. Nutting’s methodology assumes spending in the first year of a presidential term should be credited to the previous president. OK, fine. But he attributed a $410 billion spending bill in March of 2009 to George W. Bush even though it was signed by Barack Obama. Nutting also didn’t use inflation adjusted numbers.

But I did both of those and got wildly different results from Nutting, as seen in the chart at the top of this post. (Note: I looked at absolute spending as opposed to the rate of increase.)

My numbers show that spending under the ’10-’13 Obama budgets far outstrips spending by a generation of presidential predecessors. This should not be surprising since spending as a share of GDP under Obama is the highest in U.S. history outside of World War II.

We can disagree about whether all of Obama’s massive spending is a good idea or not. But we can’t factually argue about whether it happened or not. It did.

The Obama spending binge really did happen."

http://blog.american.com/2012/05/the-stunning-chart-that-shows-the-obama-spending-binge-really-happened/

so are you suggesting in the years mentioned that the total available was significanty higher as to make the REALITY that the amount actually spent decreased insignificant?

any numbers to support that theory?

no, I think the point is that after FOUR Years, spending will be only 1/10th of a percent more than it was when Bush left

as opposed to the near 20 percent increase seen in ONE year of a Bush budget,,,

But there were a few problems with Nutting’s numbers. Nutting’s methodology assumes spending in the first year of a presidential term should be credited to the previous president. OK, fine. But he attributed a $410 billion spending bill in March of 2009 to George W. Bush even though it was signed by Barack Obama. Nutting also didn’t use inflation adjusted numbers.



its only a problem when people want to play with numbers, as they do on both sides obviously

the 2009 budget was BUSHES baby,, its an accurate analogy to say that Obama was just the receiving quarterback


the numbers are legitimate, nothing fudged,, this author just chooses to go with raw numbers and ignore the percentages,, his perogative