Wow, I had no idea this was the Obama record

**Roosveltrepub** · 23 May 12,, 23:04

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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.

Obama spending binge never happened - MarketWatch MMMM Mitt Romney seems unfamilar with the truth...in fact I was unfamilar it had been hammered so hard what a spendthrift Obama was by propaganda hit peices. When even the WSJ is saying he has the slowest growth it's hard to ignore.

**zraver** · 24 May 12,, 02:17

Talk about dishonest, trying to slide an 831 billion increase in 2009 to Bush... The budget started as a Bush proposal but was signed into law by Obama in March 2009. Obama increased the budget by 400 billion knowing projected tax receipts were down. The 2008 Budget the last real Bush budget was 2.9 trillion vs Obama's 09 budget of 3.1 trillion a 6.45% increase. Obama spent 3.55 trillion in 2010 an 18.72% increase over 2008, in 11 Obama spent 3.83 trillion a 28% incrase over 08. So far in 2012 the spending is 3.79 trillion which is still a 26% increase over 08. Averaged out the spending increased 19.7% per annum under Obama.

Bush [second term] 2.29 trillion in 04 [base], 2.47 in 05 [+7%], 2.7 in 06 [+17%], 2.8 in 07 [+22%] and 2.99 in 08 [+30%] for an average increase of 19% per annum. So the best Obama can claim is he slowed the rate of growth of federal spending, he did not slow federal spending and there is no decrease.

**Roosveltrepub** · 24 May 12,, 02:47

Don’t Blame Obama for Bush’s 2009 Deficit | Cato @ Liberty again like the WSJ hardly a liberal source. The Budget was set already and the fiscal yr 4 months old before he was even sworn in. It's amazing that no one took exception to the article that let Romney off the hook for his first yr in MA for the same truthful reasons. You may not like it but the facts are the facts. I also think the Reagan numbers are a stunning repudiation of the idea he shrank goverment at all. He signed a budget that was on his desk halfway through the yr and long after tarp White House projects record deficit for 2009 - CNN add the 1 trillion for tarp and you get a pretty good guessitimate

**Julie** · 24 May 12,, 06:18

(CBS News) The National Debt has now increased more during President Obama's three years and two months in office than it did during 8 years of the George W. Bush presidency.

The Debt rose $4.899 trillion during the two terms of the Bush presidency. It has now gone up $4.939 trillion since President Obama took office.

The latest posting from the Bureau of Public Debt at the Treasury Department shows the National Debt now stands at $15.566 trillion. It was $10.626 trillion on President Bush's last day in office, which coincided with President Obama's first day.

The National Debt also now exceeds 100% of the nation's Gross Domestic Product, the total value of goods and services.

Mr. Obama has been quick to blame his predecessor for the soaring Debt, saying Mr. Bush paid for two wars and a Medicare prescription drug program with borrowed funds.

The federal budget sent to Congress last month by Mr. Obama, projects the National Debt will continue to rise as far as the eye can see. The budget shows the Debt hitting $16.3 trillion in 2012, $17.5 trillion in 2013 and $25.9 trillion in 2022.

Federal budget records show the National Debt once topped 121% of GDP at the end of World War II. The Debt that year, 1946, was, by today's standards, a mere $270 billion dollars.

Mr. Obama doesn't mention the National Debt much, though he does want to be seen trying to reduce the annual budget deficit, though it's topped a trillion dollars for four years now.

As part of his "Win the Future" program, Mr. Obama called for "taking responsibility for our deficits, by cutting wasteful, excessive spending wherever we find it."

His latest budget projects a $1.3 trillion deficit this year declining to $901 billion in 2012, and then annual deficits in the range of $500 billion to $700 billion in the 10 years to come.

If Mr. Obama wins re-election, and his budget projections prove accurate, the National Debt will top $20 trillion in 2016, the final year of his second term. That would mean the Debt increased by 87 percent, or $9.34 trillion, during his two terms.

National Debt has increased more under Obama than under Bush - Political Hotsheet - CBS News

**bonehead** · 24 May 12,, 07:25

And to think that our two front running candidates are Obama and a rhino. No end in sight for the debt debacle no matter who you vote for.

**Genosaurer** · 24 May 12,, 12:08

Originally Posted by Roosveltrepub

Don’t Blame Obama for Bush’s 2009 Deficit | Cato @ Liberty again like the WSJ hardly a liberal source. The Budget was set already and the fiscal yr 4 months old before he was even sworn in. It's amazing that no one took exception to the article that let Romney off the hook for his first yr in MA for the same truthful reasons. You may not like it but the facts are the facts. I also think the Reagan numbers are a stunning repudiation of the idea he shrank goverment at all. He signed a budget that was on his desk halfway through the yr and long after tarp White House projects record deficit for 2009 - CNN add the 1 trillion for tarp and you get a pretty good guessitimate

I'm inclined to place blame for that debt graph on the 2006-2010 Democratic majority in both the House and Senate more than either president.

**Roosveltrepub** · 24 May 12,, 19:54

Originally Posted by Genosaurer

I'm inclined to place blame for that debt graph on the 2006-2010 Democratic majority in both the House and Senate more than either president.

geez I'd love to know the programs they instituted that came close to the cost of medicare part D or the unsustainable taxcuts poassed in 2001 and 2003. I would agree with you if you had facts and specifics like this

The human capacity for self-delusion never ceases to amaze me, so it shouldn't surprise me that so many Republicans seem to genuinely believe that they are the party of fiscal responsibility. Perhaps at one time they were, but those days are long gone.

This fact became blindingly obvious to me six years ago this month when a Republican president and a Republican Congress enacted the Medicare drug benefit, which former U.S. Comptroller General David Walker has called "the most fiscally irresponsible piece of legislation since the 1960s."

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Recall the situation in 2003. The Bush administration was already projecting the largest deficit in American history--$475 billion in fiscal year 2004, according to the July 2003 mid-session budget review. But a big election was coming up that Bush and his party were desperately fearful of losing. So they decided to win it by buying the votes of America's seniors by giving them an expensive new program to pay for their prescription drugs.

Recall, too, that Medicare was already broke in every meaningful sense of the term. According to the 2003 Medicare trustees report, spending for Medicare was projected to rise much more rapidly than the payroll tax as the baby boomers retired. Consequently, the rational thing for Congress to do would have been to find ways of cutting its costs. Instead, Republicans voted to vastly increase them--and the federal deficit--by $395 billion between 2004 and 2013.

However, the Bush administration knew this figure was not accurate because Medicare's chief actuary, Richard Foster, had concluded, well before passage, that the more likely cost would be $534 billion. Tom Scully, a Republican political appointee at the Department of Health and Human Services, threatened to fire him if he dared to make that information public before the vote. (See this report by the HHS inspector general and this article by Foster.)

It's important to remember that the congressional budget resolution capped the projected cost of the drug benefit at $400 billion over 10 years. If there had been an official estimate from Medicare's chief actuary putting the cost at well more than that, then the legislation could have been killed by a single member in either the House or Senate by raising a point of order. Then-Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., later said he regretted not doing so.

Even with a deceptively low estimate of the drug benefit's cost, there were still a few Republicans in the House of Representatives who wouldn't roll over and play dead just to buy re-election. Consequently, when the legislation came up for its final vote on Nov. 22, 2003, it was failing by 216 to 218 when the standard 15-minute time allowed for voting came to an end.

What followed was one of the most extraordinary events in congressional history. The vote was kept open for almost three hours while the House Republican leadership brought massive pressure to bear on the handful of principled Republicans who had the nerve to put country ahead of party. The leadership even froze the C-SPAN cameras so that no one outside the House chamber could see what was going on.

Among those congressmen strenuously pressed to change their vote was Nick Smith, R-Mich., who later charged that several members of Congress attempted to virtually bribe him, by promising to ensure that his son got his seat when he retired if he voted for the drug bill. One of those members, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, was later admonished by the House Ethics Committee for going over the line in his efforts regarding Smith.

Eventually, the arm-twisting got three Republicans to switch their votes from nay to yea: Ernest Istook of Oklahoma, Butch Otter of Idaho and Trent Franks of Arizona. Three Democrats also switched from nay to yea and two Republicans switched from yea to nay, for a final vote of 220 to 215. In the end, only 25 Republicans voted against the budget-busting drug bill. (All but 16 Democrats voted no.)Republican Deficit Hypocrisy - Forbes.com

Oh asnd deficit hawk paul ryan voted for this boondoggle of big pharma welfare. it seems odd to me congress wuld insit medicare pay more for the same drug than the VA.....http://theincidentaleconomist.com/wo...-like-the-vas/

You can blame them but nothing so harmed the bottomline in the last ten yrs nearly as much as taxcuts wirth sunsets passed incidentally using the same mechanism as HCR and Medicare part D

**Roosveltrepub** · 24 May 12,, 19:59

Originally Posted by bonehead

And to think that our two front running candidates are Obama and a rhino. No end in sight for the debt debacle no matter who you vote for.

I think till tax increases are on the table instead of calls for huge taxcuts there is no possible path out. Compromise is required to reach consensus. At this point the republcan position is larger taxcuts than the Bush cuts then magical economic growth and a defense budget equal to the 1920s and entitlement slashing. frankly, other than Obam and a few others the democrats are near as extreme with a refusal to cut along with tax. Look at the sudden Keynes lovers talking about the economic fallout of defense cuts from the debt deal the right is trying to shit can

**zraver** · 24 May 12,, 21:22

Originally Posted by Roosveltrepub

Don’t Blame Obama for Bush’s 2009 Deficit | Cato @ Liberty again like the WSJ hardly a liberal source. The Budget was set already and the fiscal yr 4 months old before he was even sworn in. It's amazing that no one took exception to the article that let Romney off the hook for his first yr in MA for the same truthful reasons. You may not like it but the facts are the facts. I also think the Reagan numbers are a stunning repudiation of the idea he shrank goverment at all. He signed a budget that was on his desk halfway through the yr and long after tarp White House projects record deficit for 2009 - CNN add the 1 trillion for tarp and you get a pretty good guessitimate

The 2009 budget was signed into law by Obama after he inflated it a further 400 billion that is a fact you cannot deny, not honestly anyways.

**Roosveltrepub** · 24 May 12,, 21:33

could you source that Zraver. i was unaware of anything other than the stimulus that was Obama related budgeting in 2009

**zraver** · 24 May 12,, 22:14

Originally Posted by Roosveltrepub

could you source that Zraver. i was unaware of anything other than the stimulus that was Obama related budgeting in 2009

National Coalition for Homeless Veterans - President Obama Signs FY 2009 Budget into Law
Obama Shatters Spending Record for First-Year Presidents | Fox News

**Roosveltrepub** · 25 May 12,, 00:02

I was looking for t he 400 billion figuire you referenced. The fox artcle of course was a hit job and ignored the fiscal year was halfway over, that Obama included war costs in the budget, included some disaster relief in the budget which Bush never did and hangs Tarp a Bush program's price tag on Obama

**zraver** · 25 May 12,, 00:51

Originally Posted by Roosveltrepub

I was looking for t he 400 billion figuire you referenced. The fox artcle of course was a hit job and ignored the fiscal year was halfway over, that Obama included war costs in the budget, included some disaster relief in the budget which Bush never did and hangs Tarp a Bush program's price tag on Obama

Bush requests 3.1 Taking A Look At Bush's $3.1 Trillion 2009 Federal Budget Proposal.
Obama signs into law an additional 411 billion Obama signs massive, 'imperfect' spending bill - politics - White House - msnbc.com

**JAD_333** · 25 May 12,, 06:18

Originally Posted by Roosveltrepub

a picture is worth 1000 words. Obama spending binge never happened - MarketWatch MMMM Mitt Romney seems unfamilar with the truth...in fact I was unfamilar it had been hammered so hard what a spendthrift Obama was by propaganda hit peices. When even the WSJ is saying he has the slowest growth it's hard to ignore.

Much of Federal spending since Obama took office was mandatory and would have been the case under any president. In a recession, spending for Medicare, Social Security, unemployment benefits to name a few always tend to increase. The Federal work force also increased more than 100,000 under Obama as legislation calling for staffing at Homeland Security, DoD, the FBI and other security agencies had to be met. Again this was irrespective of who was president.

That said Obama has presided over massive increases in Federal debt. The primary cause is tax revenues have been running 25% behind spending, resulting in in approx $1.79 trillion annually in deficit spending. Government spending is also higher relative to GNP under Obama, about 24% versus the traditional 16-18% under previous presidents.

Rex Nuttings analysis of spending under Obama, which Obama used in his Iowa speech this week to poo poo claims that he is a big spender, is disingenuous. It shows small percentage gains year over year starting after Obama's stimulus program in year one. Naturally, the rate of growth will look slower after a massive increase.

But it seems to me that all this hoopla over who is responsible for Federal spending misses the point. Obama swore on the stimulus and it fell short. Jobs growth has been erratic. Unemployment remains stuck at 8% and is likely higher. He made a bad call opting for health care legislation too early in his term, when he should have put his chips on a program that would have created jobs. And if his record is scrutinized carefully, his spending requests would have increased spending even more. Congress nixed much of them.

Finally, Obama enthusiasm for long-term cuts in Federal spending is lukewarm. He claims to have initiated cuts when in fact he was mostly dragged into them by the GOP House of Representatives.

There is plenty of B.S. on both sides of the aisle. But you'd think that there would be some place where we could agree on the truth. RR comes here with a bunch of nutty (no pun intended) numbers and acts like he's found the Rosetta stone.

The last time this happened was when Pelosi tried to skew the numbers--a year ago this month--and Politifact dissected her B.S.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-me...-debt-accumul/

**Roosveltrepub** · 25 May 12,, 13:19

Originally Posted by JAD_333

Much of Federal spending since Obama took office was mandatory and would have been the case under any president. In a recession, spending for Medicare, Social Security, unemployment benefits to name a few always tend to increase. The Federal work force also increased more than 100,000 under Obama as legislation calling for staffing at Homeland Security, DoD, the FBI and other security agencies had to be met. Again this was irrespective of who was president.

That said Obama has presided over massive increases in Federal debt. The primary cause is tax revenues have been running 25% behind spending, resulting in in approx $1.79 trillion annually in deficit spending. Government spending is also higher relative to GNP under Obama, about 24% versus the traditional 16-18% under previous presidents.

Rex Nuttings analysis of spending under Obama, which Obama used in his Iowa speech this week to poo poo claims that he is a big spender, is disingenuous. It shows small percentage gains year over year starting after Obama's stimulus program in year one. Naturally, the rate of growth will look slower after a massive increase.

But it seems to me that all this hoopla over who is responsible for Federal spending misses the point. Obama swore on the stimulus and it fell short. Jobs growth has been erratic. Unemployment remains stuck at 8% and is likely higher. He made a bad call opting for health care legislation too early in his term, when he should have put his chips on a program that would have created jobs. And if his record is scrutinized carefully, his spending requests would have increased spending even more. Congress nixed much of them.

Finally, Obama enthusiasm for long-term cuts in Federal spending is lukewarm. He claims to have initiated cuts when in fact he was mostly dragged into them by the GOP House of Representatives.

There is plenty of B.S. on both sides of the aisle. But you'd think that there would be some place where we could agree on the truth. RR comes here with a bunch of nutty (no pun intended) numbers and acts like he's found the Rosetta stone.

The last time this happened was when Pelosi tried to skew the numbers--a year ago this month--and Politifact dissected her B.S.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-me...-debt-accumul/

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-me...-has-lowest-s/

Our analysis

Before presenting our own calculations, we’ll get some methodological issues out of the way.

Like Nutting, we used historical data from the Office of Management and Budget along with projections from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. Projecting outlays into the future involves a degree of uncertainty, but CBO’s most recent projections are considered the most independent and reliable.

Because we’re checking the Facebook post rather than Nutting’s column, we examined the way the post compared the presidents. Since the Facebook post ignores differences between presidents’ first and second terms, which are noted in Nutting’s chart, we’ve combined presidents’ entire tenures into a single time span. And several presidents who served during the past 60 years didn’t have tenures that coincided precisely with fiscal years, due to assassination or resignation. So we’re using the closest fiscal years we can, and we’re skipping President Gerald Ford, whose tenure was too short to adequately measure.

Here are the average spending increases per year in raw dollars (not adjusted for inflation) in descending order by president:

President

Fiscal year baseline

Last fiscal year

Average percentage increase per year

Carter

1977

1981

16.4

Nixon

1969

1975

13.5

Johnson

1964

1969

11.0

George W. Bush

2001

2009

10.2

Reagan

1981

1989

8.6

Kennedy

1961

1964

7.1

George H.W. Bush

1989

1993

5.8

Clinton

1993

2001

4.0

Eisenhower

1953

1961

3.6

Obama

2009

2013

1.4

So, using raw dollars, Obama did oversee the lowest annual increases in spending of any president in 60 years.

Here are the results using inflation-adjusted figures:

President

Fiscal year baseline

Last fiscal year

Average percentage increase per year

Johnson

1964

1969

6.3

George W. Bush

2001

2009

5.9

Kennedy

1961

1964

4.7

Carter

1977

1981

4.2

Nixon

1969

1975

3.0

Reagan

1981

1989

2.7

George H.W. Bush

1989

1993

1.8

Clinton

1993

2001

1.5

Obama

2009

2013

-0.1

Eisenhower

1953

1961

-0.5

So, using inflation-adjusted dollars, Obama had the second-lowest increase -- in fact, he actually presided over a decrease once inflation is taken into account.

Bottom line: The Facebook post’s claim that government spending under Obama is "slower than at any time in nearly 60 years" is very close to accurate.

it wasnt the rosetta stone it was just the truth. Your claim the stimulus wasnt included btw is false. it's pretty cleary stated it was in fact included. Again though, when we consider the "supposed" failure of the stimulus it's important to look at what the policies of the opposition would of led too..... I won't rehash it here but, the republican party would of been living in 1933 all over again. The best thing that happend to the republican party the last four yrs is they lost the Presidency. It's hard to make any case the policies they advocated in 09-10 wouldnt of been a disaster

The truth on spending is we have a disconnect between revenue and spending and as a nation have had that disconnect since we signed on to the magical laughable curve where taxcuts magically create positive revenues.... instead of the laffer curve. We arent eliminting social secuiry medicare medicaid and defense. Even a reasonable 10 percent cut in all leaves us with systemic deficits. Till we admit taxes have to be part of the fix and abandon the ludicrous idea we can cut high end rates 8 percent more and it's a magical deficit reduction tool nothing is going to change reguardless of the President.