The chart Obama wants us all to forget about: (h/t Doug Ross)
Over the past 50 years, 10 U.S. presidents have made annual budget requests to Congress, projecting deficits both big and small. But no other president compares to Barack Obama when it comes to the size and scale of the current budget deficit facing the United States.
The country is facing an 8.3 percent estimated average national deficit of a two-term Obama administration — the biggest of the past 50 years. By comparison, the current estimate for Obama is nearly double the percentage under Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush — and they were fighting the Cold War.
The only thing I would add to that chart is which party controlled Congress during their presidency.
Take the first few years of Obama's term where he had super majorities and rammed through any and all spending increases he could think of.
Lastly, isn't it interesting that not one President has been able to decrease the deficit in the last 50 years?
A striking chart showing that, over the last decade, 65 percent of federal expenditures went to pay for entitlement commitments, not wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, defense, or national security:
“About 65 percent of federal expenditures over the last ten years have gone towards entitlements,” Paul Miller writes. “By comparison, about 15 percent has gone towards national defense, excluding the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Iraq has cost three percent, and only about one percent has gone towards the war in Afghanistan (including the cost of ongoing military operations and all reconstruction and stabilization assistance combined), according to my analysis of figures from OMB.”
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Though this suggests how deep each white house tenant dragged us into the deficit hole,
it lacks indication of whether the Congress was complicit with or adversarial to the result.
Color to indicate the party rule during both halves of each presidential term (four under
a two term president) would point the blame more squarely upon those congresses.
This is easy to fix. Here’s a nice interactive chart, that shows how much annual deficits can be reduced by selecting various cuts. Each item selected or removed is immediately reflected up above.
It’s a very instructive chart. I think huge screens displaying it should be put in in the House and Senate, and all of the doors should be locked with our reps and senators inside. They should be supplied with 10 days of food and water. The doors wouldn’t open until the budget has been balanced.
@Greg: That would be too much like telling them to do their jobs.
areopagitica is mostly correct, as far as Congress and their culpability when it comes to deficits. There is, however, that case where a President has a ‘signature’ moment, or idea, that they have pushed upon the people. Obama has had several of these to date, including the Stimulus and Obamacare, both of which have led to massive deficits. Interestingly, both of these happened during times of a near filibuster-proof Senate, and a large majority in the House, of Democratic control.
you forgot to eliminate certain agency’s….within 3 yrs eliminate Dept. of education (return to states), same with health & human serices, and EPA. there is a start!…within 10yrs…get all federal work back to those detailed by the Constitution, return the rest to the states.
And yet the budget is presented by the President, who may veto expenditures. ‘Tis always easy to point at someone to “blame.” Much more difficult to accept a responsibility and address it.
One of the reasons the deficit appears so bad under Obama was the fact the nat’l/global economy shrank significantly in 2008. So as a % of GDP, Obama’s spending seems larger. But dollar for dollar, the 2nd Bush admin’s revenue slashing coupled with runaway spending was staggering. I watched ( some of us were paying attn to the deficit ALL along) as the nat’l debt went from just over $1T in 2001 to over $10T by end of Bush’s 2nd term. The economy was larger so as a % of the whole, the debt ‘seems’ smaller.
Either way, a great opportunity was squandered when, by end of Clinton’s 2nd term, we were running budgetary surpluses and instead of using THAT money to start paying down our collective debt, Bush instituted massive tax cuts. He told everyone he was going to do it. No one seemed to mind running deficits until the economy crashed and a Dem took office. Some of us having been jumping up & down, trying to make noise about this for past 2 decades. Concord Coalition anyone?
I’d also lie to see the source of the numbers in your graph above, showing ALL that money going to ‘entitlements’ and such a wee percentage going to Iraq/Afghan wars. Guess it is all how you slice the pie. I have seen other data that shows for every tax dollar collected, 0.27cents goes to DOD spending, another 20 cents or so ( but less) goes to Medicare, then SS, then about 0.15cents to the interest on our debt payments and so on. ( I would post it here, but can’t find in my pc right now-sorry- I will if I find it)
‘Entitlement’ spending (a misnomer since we all pay into it) did not rise THAT dramatically in the last decade- not enough to account for the rapid rise in the nat’l debt. As a nation, we took a major revenue cut (via tax cuts) while introducing new spending in major projects ( 2 wars spanning close to a decade ea, a prescription coverage plan, as well as a massive govt buildup in the creation of a whole new in security apparatus-Dept of Homeland Security.)
When you have dug yourself into a deep hole, there is more to the solution than just stop digging. You’ll still be underground. One has to fill in the hole again somehow.