In a recent analysis on Market Watch, Rex Nutting says Americans who think there has been a large increase of federal spending under President Obama’s watch are wrong. From the analysis:
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.
Varied versions of this flawed argument have already been shot down by numerous commentators, including twice by Just Facts President Jim Agresti in 2010 andearlier this month, and by Morgen Richmond and me here at Hot Air. However, Nutting takes a different angle on the discussion, and there numerous misleading or inaccurate statements he makes that require correcting. Several major points are addressed below.
First, Nutting writes, “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.” This is inaccurate for two reasons: first, as Nutting notes in a separate chart, Obama was responsible for $140 billion in stimulus spending in 2009. Therefore, insinuating that the 2009 deficit was garnered entirely under President Bush’s watch is misleading.
Second, and related, Nutting fails to place blame for a number of other spending items President Obama signed into law on the President, particularly those from the $410 billion H.R. 1105, the Omnibus Appropriations Act, 2009. This Act, signed into law by President Obama on March 11, 2009, included the following:
- Five billion dollars worth of earmarks added by Members of Congress.
- A funding increase of $8.5 billion in the Labor-HHS-Education portion of the law, excluding emergency appropriations.
- A $31 billion increase in nine bills funding various federal agencies over FY 2008, astotaled by the U.S. Conference of Mayor.
All told, as noted by the Canada Free Press, the omnibus increased total spending in the relevant departments by 8% over the prior year. And while $31 billion is not a large amount of money compared to the federal budget in 2009 (it was less than one percent of spending in that year), it was 22% of the $140 billion in deficit spending Nutting credits to Obama. Nutting should still have put the blame for those increases on Obama’s shoulders – as he eventually, and rightly, did with stimulus spending.
Third, Nutting cites the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) to claim FY 2013 spending is supposed to go down by 1.3%. This is extremely misleading. In citing the CBO, Nutting is looking at the its 2012 baseline report on spending. This report looks at how current law will impact spending and the deficit. However, in the same report, CBO’s alternative fiscal scenario (what I like to call the politically realistic scenario, with explanations of the likely course Congress will take regarding specific tax and spending programs) expects certain spending reductions to be delayed by Congress. These include cuts to doctor payments in Medicare and the sequestration cuts scheduled to take place in 2013. These and other examinations of fiscal reality cause the CBO to note “deficits would average 5.4 percent of GDP over the 2013–2022 period, rather than the 1.5 percent reflected in CBO’s baseline projections.” The CBO also expects the difference in deficits between the baseline report and alternative fiscal scenario to be about two percent of GDP, or over $300 billion in 2013.
Put it yet another way:
Obama inherited an economy where Gov’t spent 20% of our GDP.
Under Obama our present Gov’t spends 25% of our entire GDP.
Usually, in a household or a business, when one’s baseline income drops so do one’s expenditures.
Not under Obama!
Our economy has taken a huge hit under Obama’s bone-headed fiscal policies, but he still spends like we are in a boom.
And he doesn’t even have the “Look how much I saved!” excuse of a coupon-clipping, holiday sales stampeding shopaholic.
no matter how they put it for him, it is not believed by anyone with a brain.
it’s too obvious, it has left a trail too long for AMERICANS WHO HAVE TO MEET THEIR BUDGET WITH LESS
AND LESS AND LESS, AS TIME GO BY
WHILE THE GOVERNMENT GO IN EXTRAVAGANT SPENDING
VACATIONING LIKE MULTI MILLIONAIRES, AND OBAMA SENDING
BILLIONS TO HIS FRIENDS THE BROTHERHOOD,
ON THE BACK OF THE WORKING CITIZENS
@Nan G:
It is amusing that our liberal/progressive friends fail to note that under Obama, the federal government’s baseline budgeting has increased dramatically. Starting with the Stimulus, Obama’s WH, with the help of Pelosi in the House and Reid in the Senate, increased the budget baseline, or, those spending items currently, and permanently, etched in law, and increased on an annual, ongoing basis. This is how a politician can state that they cut the discretionary funding level of a government, while actually increasing the overall budget, as Obama and his Democrat friends have done.
For an example closer to home, a baseline budget for the average person may include a car payment, mortgage or rent, utilities, and groceries. When the baseline budget is increased, say, after buying a new car with higher monthly payment, that leaves less available, considering the revenue(paycheck), for discretionary spending. Assume that the person added $200/month onto his car payment. For the average budget-minded person, then $200 less can be spent on those “wants”, such as movies, eating out, expensive foods, etc., that a person can spend. Obama, though, with the help of his Democrat friends, did the equivalent of not lowering any discretionary spending, leaving the budget $200/month in the hole.
What’s more, Obama has allowed this baseline budget to increase at an annualized increase of 4-7%, on average, for each individual spending item (this is where it differs from the household example). 4-7% of a few trillion ends up as much as a couple hundred Billion per year, or, more than the accepted dollar figure his tax hikes on the Rich would bring in. And the gullible, useful idiots of the left, including our own liberal/progressive friends here, have bought into the idea that tax hikes on the Rich will bring the government back to stable financial health again. Morons, one and all.
JG, I don’t think the lefties like greg believe it will do anything as far as the national debt is concerned. They see it as an incremental step to punishing/destroying the “rich”…..with the exception of “rich” leftists of course.
Funny when even Glenn Kessler gives Carney and the White House 3 pinocchios.
Additional point:
Kessler’s ptII, challenging Politifact: