We talked yesterday about how demonstrably wrong Republicans are when they accuse President Obama of dramatically increasing government spending. The chart showing government expenditures over the last half-century tell an important tale.
Kevin Drum did a nice job taking this one step further, publishing a chart that breaks this down by president over the last 20 years.
Kevin Drum/Mother Jones
Those who continue to believe Republicans support fiscal restraint while Obama supports out-of-control government spending just aren't paying close enough attention. As Kevin added, "What we have isn't a spending problem. That's under control. What we have is a problem with Republicans not wanting to pay the bills they themselves were largely responsible for running up."
Paul Krugman had some related thoughts on this yesterday -- including some additional charts -- noting that spending levels sometimes appear exaggerated when GDP growth slows and mandatory spending programs grow.
The bottom line remains the same: federal spending in recent years has reached the "slowest pace since 1953-56, when Dwight D. Eisenhower was president."
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The Republicans were doubtless complaining over that really sharp uptick in 2009, with that budget passed by the previous administration, thinking that it was Obama's doing. I can't help but think that as part of the Republican policy is to ignore or deny inconvenient truths, and to take something which may have a tiny bit of truth but in the larger reality of the world is irrelevant, and somehow make a mountain out of a mole tunnel.
Sprint, I think you are perhaps a bit too polite and kind :-)
my mother raised me to be a lady (yeah, a long time ago) but I would instead call them liars . . . and thieves (for trying to steal votes and elections).
Go Hillary! you are MAGNIFICENT!
:-)
The chart demonstrates the Confederates masquerading as Republicans have been doing their almighty best in their war against America.
Why include State and Local expenditures? What control does the President have over those? And what party was in charge of those states and local expenditures? I smell something fishy.
Okay, took a moment to find the data, understand the intereface, and then to cut/paste into spread sheet. Here's the link to the data.
Comparing federal spending per capita of Clinton, Bush, and Obama to the year prior to their taking office here are the totals. (I took federal per capita spending of 1992, 2000, and 2008 the year each were elected and before they became president and subtracted it from the per capita spending their last year in office):
Clinton increased it $912
Bush increased it $3,170
Obama has increased it so far $1,006
Obama's was trending down after the huge jump of $1,654 between 2008 and 2009 but bumped up in 2012. The projections continue to trend down one more year before a continued sharp increase.
The figures are also misleading to the extent that it includes Social Security as a government receipt and expenditure. Those receipts and expenditures are not really taxes in the normal sense because the government is not using its funds to pay benefits. Spending will be skewed by reason of the number of people retiring during the next 20 years and because the IOU's that the government wrote to SS are going to have to be redeemed. Without isolating these numbers, it will appear government spending will continue to rise regardless of who is president.
Mike, I completely agree (if by "the figures" you mean mine and those of the original post). Anytime you are looking at stats or financial figures without a thorough explanation or understanding, they can easily paint a misleading picture. That is, in part, what I was attempting to illustrate.
The 2009 budget was written by the Bush administration. Obama should only be accountable for 2010, which was had its budget written in 2009 (Obama's first year). If you count from 2010, even federal spending is flat or down.
What crap. Here we have a chart proving spending is decreasing under conditions A+B-D/E+WTF. How about a real graph showing the real Federal spending and the real Federal revenue so the regular folks here can understand the actual issues. The more qualifiers, the less information. http://www.heritage.org/federalbudget/growth-federal-spending-revenue
Then let's ask why Obama decided to cut almost everyone's taxes. That would have paid for a third of the deficit. But no, Obama decided to forgo revenue. Oh well, it's all BS anyway. Thank goodness for gridlock.
Right shooter its crap because it shows that the republicans do what they do best, run up the bills then skip out of town one step ahead of the bill collector. GOP Grand Old Party of free loading dead beats. But if you ad been really concerned about the debt you would have been concerned back in 1981 when Reagan took the country from being the worlds #1 loaning nation and made it into the worlds #1 borrowing nation.
funny thing history...what was considered runaway spending back then...oh yeah $48,000 toilet seats...and the black hole money pit that was Star wars....oh and all that money we diverted to...what was it again...oh yeah have the CIA buy drugs in central america...
Need I really go on?
The question is whether the Dems are paying attention to these facts and able to incorporate them for messaging for voters. I fear not because Dems have difficulty with messaging even though voters agree with their policies. Maybe Bill Clinton can give them some help they so badly need.
Real facts are not the Democrats friend.
Says the fact free republican supporter still stuck with Reaganitis. Real facts to shooter = anything Fox news says. BTW shooter repeating the same lies 3 times or more does not make the lie a fact, it just becomes fact to people to dumb to know what a fact is.
To Republicans, FACT is just another four letter word they don't like to hear.
Facts are important (okay, should be important to both sides). My point was the same point could have been made but to a much lesser degree by using federal spending instead of including the unrelated state and local spending. That was my point in post #3.
Fact is a word T-Pubs like to say, but their definition of the word is not consistent with the definition of "fact".
I just roll my eyes once more.
Yes, the truth is out there, but the media would rather stir up anger and fear, make money than report the truth.
Ha! Yeah. "I don't think that word means what you think it means."
...but then they are on record as having said that they refuse to let facts define their reality.
You are entitled to your own opinions but not your own facts. We went from a budget surplus under Clinton to massive deficit spending under Bush and total Republican control of the government. That is not opinion that is historical fact. Period. end of statement. thank you. good day.
No matter how much they pretend otherwise Republicans made things the way they are and they are responsible. Anything else is just "Bullpuckey"
The MAIN reason for this increase, is the war in Iraq, who didn't have WMD, who didn't attack the US, and who (with sanctions) would have been overthrown by it's own people.
The reasons for the Iraq war, was to give Bush supporters money (Haliburton, etc.). However, they didn't think about the loss of American lives. I ws against it from day 1, due to the cost of lives and money, and was called a traitor by many people in my family, only to have them say a year later "You were right"!
Re - More smoke and mirrors
The cost of wars should include figures for repairing those we send to fight them, but the Taliban/Teaparty consider the sons and daughters of the poor (the people they send to steal their cheap oil for them) as disposable expendables.
I would also like to see a graph (for the same timeframe) showing TOTAL government revenues per capita. I strongly suspect that it would show a downward line, which would make it clear (even to Pooper242 & RobDon & other repuke trolls) that our deficit spending is a function of repuke economic policies of the last 30 years.
SadOldVeteran, (first thanks for your service) here is a link to the chart you requested. It took me a moment to figure out how to define the criteria but I finally figured it out. Your chart shows the following:
1. Total revenue per capita rose from 1991 through 2000.
2. Dipped in 2001 and 2002 (no doubt in part to 9/11).
3. Rose from 2002-2007.
4. Fell sharply in 2008 and 2009.
5. Rose in 2010 and 2011 and dipped in 2012.
The people have spoken. The GOP makes no sense. Their claims of exaggerated spending by Obama and their claims that he has NOT lowered the deficit are pure lies. I heard a southern GOP rep, Mo Brooks, say on Lawrence O'Donnell last night that these deficits have been incurred in PEACETIME. Ummmm....
The GOP is not only repetitious in its lying, its lies are NOT WORKING. They think they're Goebbels and all they are is just BORING.
Not a particularly informative graph. I would prefer to see a graph illustrating spending listed as a percentage of GDP.
Kookie, here is your chart. It shows a pretty flat 36-37% of gdp spending between 1990 to 2008, dipping down into the 32-33% range some. Then it jumped to 42% in 2009 (hmmm), then fell to 40%. Hope it helps.
Great! Thanks! Just as I suspected, a nice illustration of the economic downturn. My how I envy the steady downward slope of the Clinton years 92-00. Going to be a while before we get back down below 35%.
When all is said and done, We are too big to fail!
Yet another attempt by the left to skew reality in their favor.
1) This graph includes local, state, and federal spending. Last I heard, the presidency and its administration are federal positions.
2) I searched for the raw data for this mystery graph, i.e. what numbers did this guy use to create the graph; couldn't find anything....very suspicious;
3) According to the White House's Office of Management and Budget, obama increased FEDERAL spending from $2.98T (Bush's last year in office) to $3.8T in 2012 --- about $800B increase; versus Bush who increase spending from $2.29T (2004, Bush's last year of his first term) to $2.98T --- about $700B increase for Bush. You don't even want to talk about projections for the next 4 years. It's off the chart.
4) The most interesting fact though is that during obama's first 4 years, his deficit has hovered around $1.2T - $1.4T/year; while Bush's deficit has hovered around $200B - $400B/year. Again, this is from the White House's Ofc of Mgmnt & Budget. A little inconvenient fact that this author conveniently left out.
So I ask, how on earth can the liberals come up with this BS and still maintain a clear conscious? I also ask why do people take this stuff at face value without even researching it? The numbers are very clear. This is yet another attempt to make failure look like success.
I'm not an economist, rather a compositionist. Thus, I will merely point out that it's "conscience" and not "conscious" that you mean to be using.
All kidding aside (and I am just teasing a bit), I also find the chart a bit vague. However, regarding "4," your most interesting fact, the larger deficit is no big mystery in light of the stimulus spending and lack of increased revenues due to the extension of the Bush tax cuts through Obama's first term. I'm not sure why the larger deficit is an interesting fact, unless you're here to make political hay over the fact that Obama's is bigger than Bush's (wink, wink).
Per capita spending is not, to my way of thinking, the best way to evaluate efficiency/effectiveness. I'd be more inclined to think of it in terms of a ratio of public wealth. In that case, the linked graph from RobDon to my previous request might be more helpful.
Again, not wanting to look at the data in a vacuum, that chart of total US spending as a percentage of GDP (which shows a gradual decrease) would seem to illustrate that we're heading in the right direction. You also see the dramatic uptick in 2009 when the Federal govt. was spending like crazy to keep the economy from completely exploding into depression.
Of course, none of this gets at how people are actually doing on the ground (which gets at the "real" health of the nation). Something akin to the Genuine Progress Indicator is partly helpful (if somewhat dubious). That said, if elections are any indicator, then people are doing well enough that the past four years hasn't soured them to the point that they're willing to give the reigns back to the GOP (at least not in the executive branch).
The numbers you quote do not include the "off-buget" wars and medicare part D. Here's the real numbers:
FY 2008 $1 T
FY 2009 $1.2 T (Bush Budget)
FY 2009 $1.4 T (Final) (So Obama DID increase the deficit by $200B)
FY 2010 $1.3 T
FY 2011 $1.3 T
FY 2012 $1.1 T
FY2013 $0.9 T (Projected)
So Bush left Obama with Trillion $ deficits, which have been going down. If you really believe that the Bush deficits were only $200-400B, can you explain to me how the debt went up by $6T in Bushes 8 years? (BTW, the projection was that we would have a $5.6T surplus, so really Bush went through $12T in in increased debt in eight years).
Exactly George, the debt went up! But the budget was magical.
I think people are forgetting the economy needs to recover first. The economy is what WTP keep responding to in polls, NOT the debt.
Repeat: People care about the economy over the debt. That is the point that we must address first, then much of the smaller cuts and revenue increases will eventually take us to a more tolerable debt level.
We will never be debt free.
I can't help but think the emphasis on debt/deficit over the economy is the "tactic" to cut FDR programs that people love by a few folks on RW, even "Libertarians". There needs to be debate over priorities, but we already had the greatest debate. The 2012 election is trying to tell us some things.
We should stop trying to have that election put aside in favor of the RW dream to end FDR programs.
I would like to see what happens with the economic recovery with unemployment no longer higher than 6% or so. Then look at revenue/deficit.
I've been saying that for quite some time. The argument keeps returning to debt/deficit. Economy trumps and treats debt/deficit.
Tax cuts for millionaires or non millionaires has had only minimal effect.The tax cuts from Bush years helped create debt over time while we obliviously handed out risky loans. Recession would result from excessive cutting. The payroll holiday may have kept from another recession. People spent during holidays, the house next door was foreclosed and empty for a few months. Well, the new neighbors moved in. But the bank would not negotiate new terms and accept less for those months. Well, they got zero for those months. The value is still well below what it was, so what's the diff? The bank just didn't want to allow terms to be renegotiated. Results were the SAME. The loan and payment are well below what the original loan was. Lenders we bailed out have not done much to reciprocate or help economy recover.
So I hear the noise unscrambled is "make the least well off pay, so we can give dividends to the wealthy".
I hear RW and others say "so you just don't care about the debt". I keep saying it's NOT that, it's the economy.
I look at who wins and who loses. Not the lenders, not the Wall St folks. The elderly and poor, sick, those that lost a job or their mortgage went to unsustainable place and could not be sold.
It's hard to feel sorry for the possibility of tax increases for wealthier folks, when I see all the hardship around me, with Wall St. doing so well, people getting bonuses for running a company down, cutting wages for employees.
Love to get feedback on my data.
To George in Florida - the numbers I quoted are total outlays (which include off-budget outlays) on calendar year basis. See the White House's Office of Management & Budget spreadsheet http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/budget/fy2013/assets/hist01z1.xls Where are you getting your numbers?
Regarding total spending as a percentage of GDP....I haven't seen the numbers lately. It might be going in the right direction, but to hang your hat on those numbers takes some real effort. That's a failure and absolute debacle. I'm surprised you brought it up.
My point is that this blog's graph is extremely misleading when suggesting we don't have a spending problem by publishing a mysterious "per capita" spending graph and pointing at numbers that seem good. I'm still looking for the raw data on that graph. If you find it, please link me to it. Bottom line, if you spend more than you bring in, you have a spending problem. If you do it as much as obama does, you have a goliath-size spending problem....and the media like this one tries its best to make it seem like a good thing.
The Bush tax cuts is not an argument for lack of revenues. The Bush tax cuts is the reason Bush enjoyed a strong economy. His deficits were miniscule compared to obama's. The final year of Bush's term (2008) and the 1st year of obama's term had substantially rising deficits, not because of Bush's tax cuts, but because of reduced revenues caused by the housing debacle; which was a result of the Clinton administration forcing lenders to provide risky loans to people that didn't deserve it. The last 3 years of obama's 1st term saw record deficits because; 1) obama tried to spend his way out of the recession; 2) obamacare and other tax threats causing uncertainty of business expenses.
Here's a fundamental difference between liberals and conservatives....conservatives believe that tax cuts create jobs, thereby increasing gov't revenue. Liberals believe that tax increases level the playing field and magically creates revenues. No matter that obama's projected tax revenues don't even come close to balancing the budget. If liberals could finally get their head on straight and understand that there's no historical evidence to suggest that raising taxes is a revenue booster, (in fact is a job killer) we'll get back on track in the country. Instead, we teach people to be victims by telling them they deserve what rich people have. Heck, if I were a poor person living on welfare, I'd vote for that.
To Kookie Monster's point about the true indicator of the country's health, this election was an enigma to me. I think one of the biggest deceptions of the last century was the democrats convincing poor and blacks that they are good for them. Poverty is increasing and there's been a substantial increase in blacks going on welfare programs. All the while, the engine of our country, the middle class has seen a decrease in income. Guess who benefits from all this....yep, the wealthy. That's progress for the poor and blacks?
One more beef...how long are the libs going to blame Bush for obama's economy? I'd like to know so I can look forward to the next set of excuses. It should never take this long to recover from a recession in this country. This is shameful.
Let me guarantee a few things. By the end of obama's 2nd term; 1) unemployment will be as high or higher than it is right now; 2) the deficit will be as high or higher than it is right now; 3) the US's credit rating will be moderately to dramatically lower than it is right now; 4) the libs and mainstream media will still be blaming Bush.
It's a fundamental fact - you can't spend and tax your way out of a recession; and obama is showing no signs of slowing this train wreck down. How on earth can people support that?
That's a problem, Indy. Saying what liberals believe because someone told you to think that, or that's what your opinion is does not make it so:
and
Maybe if you would be independent and not show you true colors
You might want to reassess yourself as an Independent.
The fact is there WAS a surplus and debt being paid DOWN. We also blame Reagan, not just Bush.
http://zfacts.com/node/324
Can so called Independents and RW be honest? That's why nobody cares about your challenge. Apparently, you are not able to look at facts. It has been shown many times already. Obama has ALREADY slowed spending:
http://www.politicususa.com/obamas-record-destroys-republicans-big-spending-democrat-propaganda.html
Now, we did have to answer the attack on 9/11, but we did NOT have to invade/occupy Iraq.
I'd say it IS Bush to blame if he had a surplus and spent it all, and racked up the deficit and debt to this level. I'd also say, this was by design. AND, to reply to the what poor person on welfare wouldn't vote for that… What person on the right would not accept tax cut, even if it racks up deficit and debt for those grandchildren they always worry for. I worry for us NOW, economic recovery for more people, not just Wall St. They also complain about people need to get a job, but their policies sent jobs away.
Bush had the TARP, remember? The economy tanked because of job loss and the 2008 major, major, recession. If we keep cutting, what will wages (income taxes) and corporate profit be?
The truth is, there is a priority of economy over deficit in the overall picture. But many belief cutting more will fix things. No, it will make it worse. We need higher employment, higher wages, not cutting more.
So, I have shown how you blame liberals for everything, when it was Bush policies that brought us here. An economy buoyed by borrowing and a free for all, risk taking will eventually explode, which it did, in Q3 of 2008. The rich got richer and many of them were busy sending jobs and wages down that whole boom, now it burst and the economy needs the focus, which will bring more revenue.
But, there has been a mind shaping to say we have to stop Medicare and SS to fix this deficit. Think of it as the thing Ds hate, just as much as Rs hate raising taxes. Fix the economy and get incomes up first, then we can go from there. We already cut and cutting doesn't help the economy or revenues. We need economic recovery, but Rs have been busy obstructing and creating panic, lack of stability and fear.
This is getting monotonous. I am registered as an independent. I am a conservative independent. The repubs pull shenanigans. But the dems give new meaning to it. The following chart is an example of that.
The chart is another feeble attempt to make obama look good when his record is a complete failure. If you take this chart as an indicator of the success of a president, you're either addicted to the koolaid or ignoring reality. Please allow me to explain. If you make $1000/yr and you spend $1000, you break even. But if you make $1000/yr and spend $1500/yr, you are fiscally irresponsible. Doesn't matter how much you spend. It's how much you take in compared to how much you spend. Simple math. If you look at deficits, you'll find that obama's record is abysmal compared to all his predecessors.
OK - Bush left obama with a serious deficit problem because in 2007/2008, Bush increased social program spending, and 2009 saw big drop in revenues. The revenue drop was due to the housing crisis (not the Bush tax breaks). Yes, Bush enacted TARP in a bipartisan vote, of which about 97% has been paid back to the gov't. If you're suggesting that TARP caused job loss, you're way out of touch with reality.
The shameful thing is that obama decided to continue Bush's social program spending and, in fact, put it on steroids. He also enacted the biggest tax increase (or whatever you want to call obamacare) in history. All the while he and his liberal posse threatened tax increases on the rich. This is a recipe for disaster. Leads to slower spending by those rich (who create jobs), hence high unemployment, leading to lower revenues.
You are correct that we need higher employment. But when the gov't is the one creating the employment, you're in trouble. It MUST be the private sector that builds up the economy, NOT the gov't. This is probably the biggest myth that liberals have bought into..."if the gov't spends more money, it will get better". Again, the only thing that will make things better is to put people back to work. And the only way to do that is to reduce corporate taxes and taxes on the rich allowing them to create jobs. Your logic is exactly why I will guarantee that we will not get out of this economic disaster until people who think like you are no longer in charge. My God I hope that happens in the next election.
Borrowing??? obama is the godzilla of borrowing. You have a deficit addiction with this administration. Sending jobs overseas??? obama has sent an estimated 450K jobs just to China. Even liberals have been angry with the fact that he hasn't done anything to curve that trend at a time when the US needed it the most. Wages down??? The middle class income has fallen during the last 4 years. You really need to check the facts before you throw out these liberal talking points.
To say that the Rs want to stop Medicare and SS is absolutely mind boggling. Do you research anything? Or do you just take the dem's talking points at face value? Actually, the Rs want to save those programs. In fact, obama has stated several times that he is in favor of cutting SS funding in order to advance other agenda items.
In every case, your talking points are either misleading or just flat wrong. This is why I'm on this blog. I am independent. But sick of seeing these liberal myths being perpetrated upon the public by obama, his posse, the liberal media, and people like you. It's truly shameful.
I supplied links, too. The person at Z facts is also Independent. That site holds a plethora of facts, real facts, Z Facts. Not talking points, but based on Republicans saying they want to starve the beast and "drown government in the bathtub" and continually trying to privatize, personalize SS and Medicare is not a talking point. They admit it openly.
You really should try to read some non conservative data. Especially the part when CATO Institute journal http://zfacts.com/p/486.html
http://zfacts.com/node/91 Check it out for yourself Indy.
You are no doubt a conservative independent, as you have a tendency toward rudeness and authoritarianism.
Buh bye Indy, there's no talking to you.
Sandyc - sorry if I offended you. Just difficult to hear the liberal talking points over and over again when they usually turn out to be misleading and/or emotional. I would be happy to check out the links you supplied above. But when they are biased towards liberal ideology, they're typically misleading or just false; after which I go into a rant, which is what I did above.
PS: You did not respond to any of my key "factual" responses above. You only quoted comments from a few repubs. Let me explain what these repubs were trying to say....1) big gov't is bad; as it get bigger, it gets badder; also, as it gets bigger it wants to get bigger; i.e. it becomes a beast. It was already a beast before obama, now it's a much bigger beast. obama increased it so much thinking it would help the economy grow. It did not. 2) Of course privatizing SS and Medicare is a conservative position, and one I agree with. Again, the basic premise is gov't screws almost everything up. Look at what's happened to education. We spend the 2nd most money on every student in the civilized world, yet have some of the worst test scores. The smaller the gov't, the better. Look at SS, it continually teeters on bankruptcy every few years until the gov't has to prop it back up again.