Obama Spending Binge Never Happened
Commentary: Government outlays rising at slowest pace since 1950s
by Rex Nutting/ MarketWatch/ May 22, 2012
WASHINGTON — 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.
Government spending under Obama, including his signature stimulus bill, is rising at a 1.4% annualized pace — slower than at any time in nearly 60 years.
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.
The big surge in federal spending happened in fiscal 2009, before Obama took office. Since then, spending growth has been relatively flat.
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.
By no means did Obama try to reverse that spending. Indeed, his budget proposals called for even more spending in subsequent years. But the Congress (mostly Republicans but many Democrats, too) stopped him. If Obama had been a king who could impose his will, perhaps what the Republicans are saying about an Obama spending binge would be accurate.
Yet the actual record doesn’t show a reckless increase in spending. Far from it. (CONTINUED)
thebigpicturereport ™ 
How are we supposed to know the truth here? Does each party use a different formula to calculate their numbers? I listed to Michael Medved on the way home from work–I find him to be a thoughtful conservative, even though I usually disagree–and he was arguing the exact opposite of this post. I just don’t know what to think about macroeconomics and the crazy numbers coming out of DC.
I think it is safe to say that the Republicans are almost inevitably lying, as facts to them are less important than winning. Then do your own independent fact-checking.
That’s what I tend to think, but I also am open to the possibility that the truth might be somewhere in the middle on many of these debates.
Perhaps, but don’t get into the trap of thinking that Republicans and Democrats are equally bad. The GOP has changed a lot for the worse in the last dozen or more years, and is now totally corrupt and irredeemable. The Dems are certainly flawed, but adhere to facts a bit more, in my opinion.
Nowadays when something bad grows at a slower pace than before, it is considered to be a slowdown. Since nobody is willing to pay more taxes or give up their special perks, we’ll just have to keep on printing more money.
Granted I am not an economist, and all the administrative years listed show an increase in spending. Not withstanding, the rates in increases over the years show increases over the prior years. Just as 2 times 2 times 2 equals 8, percentage increases over previous years are far greater when you factor in their respective multipliers. Ever larger sums of dollars are extracted from the populace as a whole, or “created” by Government authorized entities (which either dilutes our spending power or is to be “repaid” at some future, unspecified date).
Somehow, no one seems WILLING or CAPABLE of pulling the plug.
Selfishness is borne of greed (and unreasoned fear, of which we as a nation have been entrapped for many years).
The collective idiocy of men, id est, POGO: “We have met the enemy and he is us”