Who Is The Smallest Government Spender Since Eisenhower?

[Skjellyfetti]

Obama

It’s enough to make even the most ardent Obama cynic scratch his head in confusion.

Amidst all the cries of Barack Obama being the most prolific big government spender the nation has ever suffered, Marketwatch is reporting that our president has actually been tighter with a buck than any United States president since Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Who knew?

Check out the chart –



So, how have the Republicans managed to persuade Americans to buy into the whole “Obama as big spender” narrative?

It might have something to do with the first year of the Obama presidency where the federal budget increased a whopping 17.9% —going from $2.98 trillion to $3.52 trillion. I’ll bet you think that this is the result of the Obama sponsored stimulus plan that is so frequently vilified by the conservatives…but you would be wrong.

The first year of any incoming president term is saddled—for better or for worse—with the budget set by the president whom immediately precedes the new occupant of the White House. Indeed, not only was the 2009 budget the property of George W. Bush—and passed by the 2008 Congress—it was in effect four months before Barack Obama took the oath of office.

Accordingly, the first budget that can be blamed on our current president began in 2010 with the budgets running through and including including fiscal year 2013 standing as charges on the Obama account, even if a President Willard M. Romney takes over the office on January 20, 2013.

So, how do the actual Obama annual budgets look?

Courtesy of Marketwatch-


In fiscal 2010 (the first Obama budget) 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.

No doubt, many will wish to give the credit to the efforts of the GOP controlled House of Representatives. That’s fine if that’s what works for you.

However, you don’t get to have it both ways. Credit whom you will, but if you are truly interested in a fair analysis of the Obama years to date—at least when it comes to spending—you’re going to have to acknowledge that under the Obama watch, even President Reagan would have to give our current president a thumbs up when it comes to his record for stretching a dollar.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/rickungar/2 ... ack-obama/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

This should be fun.

[AZGrizFan]

Oh, God. Not THIS lame ass argument again.

[Trapped in CA]

93henfan - he's the tightest contracting officer out there

[Col Hogan]

Misleading Thread Title...

[andy7171]

Holy fuk! Thread fail!

[grizzaholic]

Holy fuk! Thread fail!

[Grizalltheway]

Holy fuk! Thread fail!

Oh, God. Not THIS lame ass argument again.

Misleading Thread Title...

Ayup, some real solid rebuttals there.

[Ivytalk]

Analjelly: the Sultan of Swat,the Gonad of Graphs.

[Chizzang]

Okay I'll bite...
Pretend I'm an idiot - which should be easy - now explain how this is not accurate in language an idiot could understand

[BDKJMU]

Massive FAIL as usual from analjelly.

"......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, as totaled 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......................"

http://hotair.com/greenroom/archives/20 ... ord-again/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[JohnStOnge]

It is objectively incorrect to say that our government of today spends less than any government since the time of Eisenhower. To the extent that one might make an argument with the numbers presented, it would be an argument that the growth in spending in terms of percent change from the previous year has been slower. But that doesn't mean spending is lower.

Say I spend $10 one year, $100 the next year, and $500 the year after that. The percent growth between year 2 and year 3 is 500% while that between year 2 and year 1 was 1000%. So the percent growth between 2 and 3 was lower than that between 1 and 2. But it doesn't mean I spent less in year three than I did in year 2 or year 1.

This is the kind of thing that resulted in Mark Twain's unjust swipe at the use of statistics. Statistics don't really lie. But people sure to use them in distorted ways in order to do it.

[JohnStOnge]

Oh...and I see someone else has basically already said that citing what CBO SAYS is going to happen in terms of spending as indicating some certainty as to what WILL happen is pretty ridiculous.

[JohnStOnge]

Okay I'll bite...
Pretend I'm an idiot - which should be easy - now explain how this is not accurate in language an idiot could understand

You are not an idiot. And surely you can see that showing that growth in spending as expressed as percent change from the previous year is not the same as showing that spending is lower than some previous year. That approach does not even address the question of how great the increase in spending from the previous year was in absolute terms. It CERTAINLY doesn't address the level of spending.

It's lying with statistics. The kind of thing that gives statistics a bad name. Of course if you understand statistics you understand that it's crap. So the problem isn't actually statistics. It's the misuse of them.

[JohnStOnge]

Here is an illustration:

I did not gain any height over the past year. I was 6'1" last year and I am 6'!" now. So my percent gain in height is 0%.

Back when I was a kid there was a point when I was 3 feet tall. A year later maybe I was 3 feet, 3 inches tall. So for that year my percent gain in height was bout 8%.

When the author of the article says that our government spends less now than it has at any time since Eisenhower that's like saying that I am shorter now than I was when I was a kid because I had greater positive change in height expressed as percent change when I was a kid. It's complete nonsense. Ridiculous.

[BlueHen86]

Here is an illustration:

I did not gain any height over the past year. I was 6'1" last year and I am 6'!" now. So my percent gain in height is 0%.

Back when I was a kid there was a point when I was 3 feet tall. A year later maybe I was 3 feet, 3 inches tall. So for that year my percent gain in height was bout 8%.

When the author of the article says that our government spends less now than it has at any time since Eisenhower that's like saying that I am shorter now than I was when I was a kid because I had greater positive change in height expressed as percent change when I was a kid. It's complete nonsense. Ridiculous.

I don't know, seems to me that you've grown factorially over the past year.

[SuperHornet]

Here is an illustration:

I did not gain any height over the past year. I was 6'1" last year and I am 6'!" now. So my percent gain in height is 0%.

Back when I was a kid there was a point when I was 3 feet tall. A year later maybe I was 3 feet, 3 inches tall. So for that year my percent gain in height was bout 8%.

When the author of the article says that our government spends less now than it has at any time since Eisenhower that's like saying that I am shorter now than I was when I was a kid because I had greater positive change in height expressed as percent change when I was a kid. It's complete nonsense. Ridiculous.

I don't know, seems to me that you've grown factorially over the past year.

[OL FU]

Pretend I'm an idiot - which should be easy - now explain how this is not accurate in language an idiot could understand

OK You just convinced me

[JohnStOnge]

I looked up some data at http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/Historicals" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; and, as I expected, the article is false and/or misleading. First of all, in absolute terms in inflation adjusted dollars, the three highest outlays for our Federal government during 1940 - 2011 ($3.17, $3.08, and $3.13 trillion) came during the three years of Obama's term.

Adjusted for population growth? It is convenient to compare 1990, a census year immediately following the year during which Ronald Reagan left office, to 2011. Per capita Federal spending in 2011 was 36% higher, in inflation adjusted terms, than it was in 1990.

I don't think spending as a percent of GDP is a valid indicator (the most valid, I think, is per capita spending). But since both sides have used that trick to make themselves look better at times I'll mention that by that measure the three years of Obama's term have been 2nd, 3rd, and 4th highest since 1946 (WWII undoubtably impacted this measure during 1942 through 1946).

Obama gets a break in the short term percent change area because, as the author points out, we can't necessarily assign the spending level characterizing his first term as substantially influenced by him. That first term was characterized by the highest inflation adjusted spending level in our history. So even though he's also been President during the second and third highest spending years in our history, the net percent change from 2009 is negative.

But we all know why 2009 was such a high spending level. Do any of us think it would've been lower if Obama had become President a year earlier? Seriously? Do any of us doubt that he believes in having government spend a lot of money in order to stimulate the economy?

I'll qualify the bottom line by saying I don't think it's correct to say the President is responsible for spending. The Constitutional responsibility for spending belongs to Congress. A President can't appropriate one dime without Congress. Congress can appropriate all it wants without concurrence from the President. The President can exert an awful lot of influence on appropriations; but influence is all it is. It's not control.

Having said that, here is the bottom line with respect to Presidential influence on appropriations: Saying that Obama is "The Smallest Government Spender since Eisenhower" is an out and out lie. And I've been hearing it going around for a while now. It's clearly become a "progressive" talking point. The first time I heard it it was coming out of Obama's mouth. A President spewing an out and out lie. Imagine that. Hope and change.

[kalm]

Massive FAIL as usual from analjelly.

"......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, as totaled 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......................"

http://hotair.com/greenroom/archives/20 ... ord-again/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

In other words, Canada Free Press doesn't really have much to argue about and is equally adept as Marketwatch at spinning and qualifying it's remarks while begrudgingly admitting that Marketwatch qualified it's remarks.

Canada Free Press: Fail.

[JohnStOnge]

Best thing to do Kalm is just go to the link I provided and go to the tables with the inflation adjusted numbers on revenue and outlays. The contention that Obama is "The Smallest Government Spender Since Eisenhower" is not an accurate statement. It's just not. We don't need to rely on media interpretations to answer the question. Whoever the "Smallest Government Spender Since Eisenhower" is; it's not Obama. He has presided over, objectively, the largest annual government expenditures in inflation adjusted terms since 1940 as a total and in per capita terms. And even if you cut him slack on 2009 he's presided during the second and third largest annual expenditures since the WWII period if expenditures are expressed as percentages of GDP.

[kalm]

Best thing to do Kalm is just go to the link I provided and go to the tables with the inflation adjusted numbers on revenue and outlays. The contention that Obama is "The Smallest Government Spender Since Eisenhower" is not an accurate statement. It's just not. We don't need to rely on media interpretations to answer the question. Whoever the "Smallest Government Spender Since Eisenhower" is; it's not Obama. He has presided over, objectively, the largest annual government expenditures in inflation adjusted terms since 1940 as a total and in per capita terms. And even if you cut him slack on 2009 he's presided during the second and third largest annual expenditures if expenditures are expressed as percentages of GDP.

Oh I'm not doubting your analysis. And I agree with your points about stats and figures.

[UNI88]

Best thing to do Kalm is just go to the link I provided and go to the tables with the inflation adjusted numbers on revenue and outlays. The contention that Obama is "The Smallest Government Spender Since Eisenhower" is not an accurate statement. It's just not. We don't need to rely on media interpretations to answer the question. Whoever the "Smallest Government Spender Since Eisenhower" is; it's not Obama. He has presided over, objectively, the largest annual government expenditures in inflation adjusted terms since 1940 as a total and in per capita terms. And even if you cut him slack on 2009 he's presided during the second and third largest annual expenditures since the WWII period if expenditures are expressed as percentages of GDP.

You don't even need to do that, the chart in the first post demonstrates that the thread title is completely inaccurate. If federal spending increased 1.4% in Obama's first term than it was greater than in Bush II's second term and therefore the thread title is false. The only way that federal spending could have been less under Obama than under Bush II is if his percentage change had been a negative.

[AZGrizFan]

Okay I'll bite...
Pretend I'm an idiot - which should be easy - now explain how this is not accurate in language an idiot could understand

You are not an idiot. And surely you can see that showing that growth in spending as expressed as percent change from the previous year is not the same as showing that spending is lower than some previous year. That approach does not even address the question of how great the increase in spending from the previous year was in absolute terms. It CERTAINLY doesn't address the level of spending.

It's lying with statistics. The kind of thing that gives statistics a bad name. Of course if you understand statistics you understand that it's crap. So the problem isn't actually statistics. It's the misuse of them.

Hence my statement "not this lame-ass argument again."

It's not what he's spending NOW...it's what he's obligating the country to over the next 20+ years....His OWN budget projections project a federal deficit exceeding $26 TRILLION by 2020.

[Cap'n Cat]

Oh, God. Not THIS lame ass argument again.

Nice contribution, niqqer.

[AZGrizFan]

Oh, God. Not THIS lame ass argument again.

Nice contribution, niqqer.

We've beaten this dead horse into the ground, yet analjelly keeps coming back for more...gotta admire his resolve.