Spending under Obama Declining...

[AZGrizFan]

All this jabbering and not one mention of sequestration.

Well, it's obvious that legislation like the Budget Control Act and the sequestration that followed have a hand in dropping the numbers. Good or bad, the country survived the initial sequestration. IMO, entitlement and tax reform should be next. Defense is always getting hit, not that it's necessarily bad, but there are more areas of waste than the DoD.

Oh, yeah. It was fucking horrible. The government had to actually slow their rate of growth for 3 months. Horrible. Horrible.

[Chizzang]

Did you even read what Ibanez quoted? It was less than 1% higher than the 40-year average at its peak, and well below the 40-year peak of 10% under your hero Reagan.

How dare you (Liberal infidel) utter the words Ronald Reagan..!!!!


(He can only be referenced in hushed tones at somber conservative gatherings)

[kalm]

Did you even read what Ibanez quoted? It was less than 1% higher than the 40-year average at its peak, and well below the 40-year peak of 10% under your hero Reagan.

How dare you (Liberal infidel) utter the words Ronald Reagan..!!!!


(He can only be referenced in hushed tones at somber conservative gatherings)

Cough, cough...Tip O'neil...cough, cough.

[ASUG8]

Did you even read what Ibanez quoted? It was less than 1% higher than the 40-year average at its peak, and well below the 40-year peak of 10% under your hero Reagan.

How dare you (Liberal infidel) utter the words Ronald Reagan..!!!!


(He can only be referenced in hushed tones at somber conservative gatherings)

[Ibanez]

Well, it's obvious that legislation like the Budget Control Act and the sequestration that followed have a hand in dropping the numbers. Good or bad, the country survived the initial sequestration. IMO, entitlement and tax reform should be next. Defense is always getting hit, not that it's necessarily bad, but there are more areas of waste than the DoD.

Oh, yeah. It was fucking horrible. The government had to actually slow their rate of growth for 3 months. Horrible. Horrible.

Depending on who you were, sequestration was either good or bad. It was horrible for some. But sacrifice is necessary for the greater good.

[Chizzang]

No sh!t ^
The deification of these two clowns is beyond ridiculous

[93henfan]

Oh, yeah. It was fucking horrible. The government had to actually slow their rate of growth for 3 months. Horrible. Horrible.

Depending on who you were, sequestration was either good or bad. It was horrible for some. But sacrifice is necessary for the greater good.

The thousands in lost pay sucked for me, but now that's it tax time it may be a plus. I'm hoping I dropped a bracket.

[JohnStOnge]

All this jabbering and not one mention of sequestration.

Bingo. Obama May have suggested it but I don't think he ever wanted it to happen. And for sure he doesn't want it now. If the Republicans did not control the House sequestration would be long gone and spending would be much higher. I'm pretty sure we all know that.

[kalm]

All this jabbering and not one mention of sequestration.

Bingo. Obama May have suggested it but I don't think he ever wanted it to happen. And for sure he doesn't want it now. If the Republicans did not control the House sequestration would be long gone and spending would be much higher. I'm pretty sure we all know that.

Could be, but maybe if he had spent as much as Reagan...oops, I mean Tip O'Neil , it would be time for morning in America again.

[Grizalltheway]

All this jabbering and not one mention of sequestration.

Bingo. Obama May have suggested it but I don't think he ever wanted it to happen. And for sure he doesn't want it now. If the Republicans did not control the House sequestration would be long gone and spending would be much higher. I'm pretty sure we all know that.

Gotta love those checks and balances.

[Baldy]

Bingo. Obama May have suggested it but I don't think he ever wanted it to happen. And for sure he doesn't want it now. If the Republicans did not control the House sequestration would be long gone and spending would be much higher. I'm pretty sure we all know that.

Could be, but maybe if he had spent as much as Reagan...oops, I mean Tip O'Neil , it would be time for morning in America again.

"Compromise" is what has given us $17,000,000,000,000 of debt.

[Ibanez]

Bingo. Obama May have suggested it but I don't think he ever wanted it to happen. And for sure he doesn't want it now. If the Republicans did not control the House sequestration would be long gone and spending would be much higher. I'm pretty sure we all know that.

Could be, but maybe if he had spent as much as Reagan...oops, I mean Tip O'Neil , it would be time for morning in America again.

Instead of Springtime for Hitler in Germany, amirite?

[kalm]

Could be, but maybe if he had spent as much as Reagan...oops, I mean Tip O'Neil , it would be time for morning in America again.

"Compromise" is what has given us $17,000,000,000,000 of debt.

And compromise gave us the morning in America.

[JohnStOnge]

Could be, but maybe if he had spent as much as Reagan...oops, I mean Tip O'Neil , it would be time for morning in America again.

Maybe I'll look it up at some point but right now I doubt that it's true that the Federal government spent as much under Reagan as it has been spending under Obama. The fair way to do it is to look at it in both inflation adjusted and per captita terms. I've done that before. And what you see what you do that is a persistent increasing trend over time. Who was President aside, it's very unlikely that the Federal government spent more per capita in inflation adjusted terms at any time during the 1980s that it has spent at any time during Obama's term. VERY unlikely.

[Grizalltheway]

Could be, but maybe if he had spent as much as Reagan...oops, I mean Tip O'Neil , it would be time for morning in America again.

Maybe I'll look it up at some point but right now I doubt that it's true that the Federal government spent as much under Reagan as it has been spending under Obama. The fair way to do it is to look at it in both inflation adjusted and per captita terms. I've done that before. And what you see what you do that is a persistent increasing trend over time. Who was President aside, it's very unlikely that the Federal government spent more per capita in inflation adjusted terms at any time during the 1980s that it has spent at any time during Obama's term. VERY unlikely.

Read the first post in the thread.

But even at that high level, it wasn't that much higher than the 40-year average of 8.4% and was still below the 40-year peak of 10% reached in 1983.

Spin away.

[JohnStOnge]

No need to spin. The spin is on the part of the author you cite because it's presented in terms of "discretionary spending as a percent of GDP." I referred to inflation adjusted spending per capita. If you want an honest assessment of how much the federal government is spending now vs. how it was spending at some point in the past that is what you are going to look at.

But I will admit that both Democrats and Republicans have used the "as a percent of GDP" trick in the past.

[JohnStOnge]

Let's say that in 2014 I spend $50,000 to live and recreate. Then I win the Powerball in 2015. So in 2015 I spend $1,000,000. Using that "as a percent of GDP" thing is like me saying that I spent less in 2015 than I did in 2014 because the fact that I won the powerball in 2015 means that $1,000,000 is a smaller percentage of my 2015 income than $50,000 was of my 2014 income.

But if I say that I spent less in 2015 on that basis it's a lie. It just is. I clearly spent more that year.