Lowest Government Spender Since Eisenhower: Barack Obama

[UncleMatt]

Who Is The Smallest Government Spender Since Eisenhower? Would You Believe It's Barack Obama? - Forbes

This from FORBES MAGAZINE:




"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."

"So how have 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. Read the CBO’s latest budget outlook.

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.

Of course, the Heritage Foundation is having none of it, attempting to counter the actual numbers by pretending that the spending initiated by the Bush Administration is the fault of Obama. As I understand the argument Heritage is putting forth —and I have provided the link to the Heritage rebuttal so you can decide for yourself—Marketwatch, in using the baseline that Obama inherited, is making it too easy on the President.

But then, with the Heritage Foundation being the creator of the individual mandate concept in healthcare only to rebut the same when it was no longer politically convenient, I’m not quite sure why anyone believes much of anything they have to say any longer. With their history of reversing course for convenience, I can’t help but wonder, should they find themselves reviewing the spending record of a President Romney four years from today, whether they might be tempted to use the Obama numbers as the baseline for such a new Administration."

 

Amazon Forum Fav 👍

DR.ÖTEK Metal Detector, Waterproof Gold Detector, Pinpoint & Terrain Modes, Professional Metal Detector - Grab it through Amazon!

[Red James Cash]

No, Obama Is Not “the Smallest Government Spender Since Eisenhower”

by Hans Bader on May 25, 2012 · 13 comments

in Economy, Politics as Usual, Stimulus to Nowhere, Zeitgeist

As Reason Magazine’s Peter Suderman and AEI’s James Pethokoukis have noted, federal spending under the Obama administration has been at historic highs, consuming 24 percent of the economy, on average, compared to around 20 percent under George Bush, and 20 percent or less in most years since the end of World War II. (That percentage holds true even if you blame Bush for the record spending in 2009 after he left office, which is somewhat misleading). In 2011, the federal budget reached $3.6 trillion, compared to $2.9 trillion in 2008. By contrast, under the Eisenhower administration, the federal budget ranged from $76 billion in 1953, to $97 billion in 1961, according to the World Almanac. So Obama is obviously a bigger spender than either Bush, or Eisenhower, contrary to Rick Ungar’s absurd claim that Obama is “the smallest government spender since Eisenhower.” Ungar cites the claims of a liberal reporter, MarketWatch’s Rex Nutting, who has claimed that “under Obama, federal spending is rising at the slowest pace since Dwight Eisenhower.” As the Washington Examiner notes, this is misleading, since it largely blames Bush for $400 billion in spending in 2009 that Obama was responsible for, including major spending increases that Bush had opposed:

Nutting’s piece employs several abuses of the numbers (including some underhanded switching between projected and actual spending data), but his most productive sleight of hand is to assign all of fiscal year 2009′s spending to President Bush. Nutting doesn’t start the clock on Obama’s spending until fiscal 2010.

In most cases, that would be fair, because presidents typically sign the next year’s spending bills in the calendar year before they leave office. But not in 2009. The Democratic Congress, confident Obama was going to win in 2008, passed only three of fiscal 2009′s 12 appropriations bills (Defense; Military Construction and Veterans Affairs; and Homeland Security). The Democrat Congress passed the rest of them, and Obama signed them.

So whereas Bush had proposed spending just $3.11 trillion in fiscal 2009, for a 3 percent increase, Obama and the Democrats ended up spending $3.52 trillion, for a 17.9 percent increase in spending — the highest single-year percentage spending increase since the Korean War.

By the end of Obama’s first year in office, spending as a percentage of GDP was 25.2 percent, the highest it has ever been since World War II. As Obama’s stimulus spending has receded, spending as a percentage of GDP has gone down, but only slightly. Under President Bush, spending averaged 19.6 percent of GDP. Under President Clinton, it was 19.8 percent. The historical post-World War II average is 19.7 percent. In 2012, after four years of Obama’s fiscal leadership, it is expected to be 24.3 percent.

Treating the inflated 2009 federal budget as the benchmark for whether Obama is overspending is ridiculous. It contained billions of dollars in extraordinary spending on bailouts and expenses related to the 2008 financial crisis. Yet, as Reason’s Peter Suderman notes, “what Obama did in subsequent budgets was stick to that newly inflated level of spending. Outlays in 2010 were just a hair short of $3.5 trillion. In 2011, they rose further, approaching $3.6 trillion.” As AEI’s Pethokoukis notes,

Obama chose not to reverse that elevated level of spending; thus he, along with congressional Democrats, are responsible for it. Only by establishing 2009 as the new baseline, something Republican budget hawks like Paul Ryan feared would happen, does Obama come off looking like a tightwad. Obama has turned a one-off surge in spending due to the Great Recession into his permanent New Normal through 2016 and beyond.

It’s as if one of my teenagers crashed our family minivan, and I had to buy a new one. And then, since I liked that new car smell so much, I decided to buy a new van every year for the rest of my life. I would indeed be a reckless spender.

Obama can’t avoid responsibility for 2009, either. As a columnist notes,

Obama didn’t come in and live with the budget Bush had approved. He immediately signed off on enormous spending programs that had been specifically rejected by Bush. This included a $410 billion spending bill that Bush had refused to sign before he left office. Obama signed it on March 10, 2009. Bush had been chopping brush in Texas for two months at that point. Marketwatch’s Nutting says that’s Bush’s spending. There are other spending bills that Obama signed in the first quarter of his presidency, bills that would be considered massive under any other president — such as the $40 billion child health care bill, which extended coverage to immigrants as well as millions of additional Americans. This, too, is called Bush’s spending. . .Frustrated that he can’t shift all of Obama’s spending to Bush, Nutting also lowballs the spending estimates during the later Obama years. For example, although he claims to be using the White House’s numbers, the White House’s estimate for 2012 spending is $3.795 trillion. Nutting helpfully knocks that down to $3.63 trillion. But all those errors pale in comparison to Nutting’s counting Obama’s nine-month spending binge as Bush’s spending.

If Obama had his way, spending would have been even bigger than it is, since the Congress has not approved as much spending as Obama sought in his budget proposals, as Nutting himself has conceded. As the Congressional Budget Office has noted, “The President’s proposals would add $4.8 trillion to the national debt,” increasing “the cumulative deficit from 2010 to 2019 to $9.3 trillion.” By contrast, Bush wanted to spend less than the liberal Congress that was elected in 2006. Spending went up from $2.784 trillion in 2007 to $2.901 trillion in 2008 and $3.5 trillion in 2009. (However, Bush himself was a big spender, who increased spending at a faster rate than his predecessor did. To outspend Bush takes real effort, and neither he nor Obama should be treated as the “new normal” for justifying yet more spending binges.)

You may wonder why I am even citing the blogger Rick Ungar, who is not an economist, but rather a left-wing lawyer who wants more government control of the health care system. Ungar is a blogger at Forbes who gets his traffic there partly due to the man-bites-dog-quality of the “conservative” Forbes seemingly endorsing all sorts of left-wing talking points and legends promoted on Ungar’s blog. (Forbes’ publisher, unlike many of its staff, is conservative.) For example, this link describes Ungar’s blog post as an assertion by Forbes itself that Obama is “the smallest government spender since Eisenhower.” The fact that Ungar’s blog is on the web site of the supposedly conservative Forbes Magazine enables liberals like Roger Ebert to say that “even Forbes, of all places” agrees with whatever is the factually-baseless liberal taking-point of the day, by linking to Ungar’s blog on the site. Everything Ungar says in favor of big government, or against free market-oriented economic policies, is treated by those who agree with him as a confession or admission by a conservative magazine that markets don’t work, or that the conservative reformers that Ungar criticizes must be extremists to be criticized even at Forbes.

Ungar’s most famous blog post was a self-contradictory, assume-your-own-conclusion blog post in which he claimed it was a “lie” for Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker to say he wanted state workers covered by collective bargaining agreements to “contribute more” to their pension and health insurance plans, because, Ungar claimed, these workers already paid 100 percent of such costs. Of course, as both the conservative National Review and the liberal Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel (which endorsed Obama and opposed Governor Walker’s collective bargaining reforms) noted, state workers did not pay 100 percent of their pension and health costs. So Ungar was completely wrong on the facts.

State labor unions objected to Governor Walker’s reforms precisely because state workers did NOT pay most of their health care costs, but would have been required to pay an increased (but still far less than 100 percent) share of their healthcare costs under his reforms. Ungar alleged that Governor Walker had claimed that the state workers had received a “gift” of health insurance and pension costs from the state, but Walker never said anything of the kind, or claimed it was a “gift,” as opposed to a costly bargained-for provision of a collective bargaining agreement; this “gift” assertion was just the peculiar inference Ungar himself drew from the combination of Walker’s statement that he wanted state employees to pay a greater fraction of their health and pension costs, and Ungar’s own factually inaccurate assumption that state workers already paid all of their health care and pension costs (an assumption based on his erroneous interpretation of a faulty analysis by David Cay Johnston, who was a writer for the left-wing magazine The Nation). This factually-inaccurate blog post has been tweeted 5,139 times, mostly after it was tweeted by liberal critic Roger Ebert, who said that “even Forbes” had supposedly debunked Governor Walker’s claims (when it was Ungar — not Forbes itself — that had attacked Walker).

No, Obama Is Not ?the Smallest Government Spender Since Eisenhower?

 

[UncleMatt]

I wasn't asking if you agreed, I was posting verifiable facts. Did you read the article? Yes or no?

And posting things about Governor Walker, or anyone other non-relevant people you want to bring up, is OFF TOPIC to this thread.

 

[UncleMatt]

Interesting. I read the opinion piece blog you posted, and it completely ignores the fact that Marketwatch RE-ASSIGNED the 2009 stimulus to OBAMA, and he STILL came out a much lower spender than the LAST 3 REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTS!

Still waiting to hear if you read the article I started this thread with...

 

[Red James Cash]

Believing an article about economics written by a liberal lawyer is like believing and following an article about where to hide your money written by a active thief.It just doesnt work to well in the end.

 

[UncleMatt]

Uh huh, but articles written by conservatives are to be taken as gospel? That perspective only appeals to people who hate Obama, as well as the facts. The article I posted was based on reality, not a political agenda.

 

[Dave44]

Yea the Lib writer lost me when he forgot that congress holds the purse strings, and then conveniently forgets how a budget is passed,, or in the case of this administration, no budget. Hard to say if one is adhering to guidelines if there are no guidelines. The errors of omission are lies too.

There are a lot of us who were grumbling the whole time as Bush Jr passed spending bills, and budgets and sent gobs of money down the toilet while trying to appease the Libs controlling congress. By association, and not having the gumption to push back against the big spending dems, We deduce that he was a part of the Dem party, "Democrat Lite"

 

[UncleMatt]

No, he addressed that quite well. Did you read the article? Then you would have seen this:

"So how have 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."

Sounds like the writer understand better than you how Congress control the purse strings, and also understands the TIMING of things...

 

[Old Bookaroo]

UncleMatt:

The rebuttal counts on switching the metrics used to measure. We see this when people whine about the Federal debt increasing so many trillion dollars under Mr. Obama. People use actual dollars instead of percentages because it makes the case sound worse.

You posted hard data. Some people can attempt to distract with percentages (no surprise in The Great Recession private sector spending was down; therefore Federal government spending was up).

Here's another way to look at it. Has "government" grown, remained stable, or been reduced during Mr. Obama's time in the White House. If there has been a massive increase in government, spending would have to go up to pay for it.

The truth is local and state government (often dependent on Federal government spending) has been considerably reduced. Federal government employment has been about the same since January 2009.

PolitiFact | Paul Krugman says government jobs have fallen by half million since January 2009
Has government employment really increased under Obama? | AEIdeas
Barack Obama, Government Job Slayer | PRAGMATIC CAPITALISM

In September, before the government shutdown, the government had 2,723,000 employees, according to the latest job report, on a seasonally adjusted basis. That is the lowest figure since 1966. Until now, the lowest figure for the current century had been 2,724,000 federal employees in October 2004, when George W. Bush was seeking a second term in the White House.

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2...nment-federal-employment-at-47-year-low/?_r=0

Another way to look at it is the Federal deficit. Chad went off on a "liar" rant when I correctly posted the fact the Federal deficit has been cut in half during Mr. Obama's administrations.

So - looking at Federal government spending, number of employees, size of the deficit: No massive increase in the size of the Federal government.

Game. Set. Match.

Good luck to all,

~ The Old Bookaroo

 

[Dave44]

No, he addressed that quite well. Did you read the article? Then you would have seen this:

"So how have 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."

Sounds like the writer understand better than you how Congress control the purse strings, and also understands the TIMING of things...

Sounds like the writer and maybe even you can't figure out who was in control of the purse,, Nearly sounds like both of you think it was Jr and maybe Ted Cruz?

As I say,, lies by omission.

 

[UncleMatt]

The writer even pointed out that little game, but it was simply ignored so people could return to promoting their agenda. The right wing is simply allergic to the facts that prove their claims are simple FALSE!

 

[Red James Cash]

Uh huh, but articles written by conservatives are to be taken as gospel?

I wouldnt know seeing as how I think both parties are one and the same except for the names Dem and Rep.Both are full of B.S. and follow the same agenda behind closed doors.

 

[UncleMatt]

Wow, Dave, even when things are held up for you to see, its still doesn't happen. Then you claim its other people engaging in what you are doing yourself. Which has been pointed out to you about a million times by various T-net members. Good luck with that.

 

[UncleMatt]

I wouldnt know seeing as how I think both parties are one and the same except for the names Dem and Rep.Both are full of B.S. and follow the same agenda behind closed doors.

How odd for you to claim this, since I NEVER see you post anything critical of the right in any way, its always the left that you target with your threads. How do you explains that red, if you are truly equally upset with both parties and all...

 

[Dave44]

It's ok Matt. You're article was so biased that it Verged on lies, by cherry picking the facts that the author wanted. Red James and I simply held it up for you to look at.

When the Jr said he withheld stimulus for the next Pres to use if needed I was screaming at the TV. I am surprised you weren't?

 

[Red James Cash]

How odd for you to claim this, since I NEVER see you post anything critical of the right in any way,

I guess thats how much you pay attention

its always the left that you target with your threads. How do you explains that red,

What party does the farce in power belong to?

 

[onfire]

Ok UM we get your drift but as far as I'm concerned he's still a goof. You maybe able to count a few lies from conservatives but I doubt enough to fill a book which I'm sure will come out someday. Maybe a biography " Life and times of a forgotten lion KING"

 

[UncleMatt]

I guess thats how much you pay attention
What party does the farce in power belong to?

So a minute ago you claimed to hold both parties equally responsible, what happened to that? From just a few moments ago? Please post a link to a single thread you have ever posted that is critical of the right wing. If you can't...

 

[Chadeaux]

Who Is The Smallest Government Spender Since Eisenhower? Would You Believe It's Barack Obama? - Forbes

This from FORBES MAGAZINE:

View attachment 908878


"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."

"So how have 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. Read the CBO’s latest budget outlook.

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.

Of course, the Heritage Foundation is having none of it, attempting to counter the actual numbers by pretending that the spending initiated by the Bush Administration is the fault of Obama. As I understand the argument Heritage is putting forth —and I have provided the link to the Heritage rebuttal so you can decide for yourself—Marketwatch, in using the baseline that Obama inherited, is making it too easy on the President.

But then, with the Heritage Foundation being the creator of the individual mandate concept in healthcare only to rebut the same when it was no longer politically convenient, I’m not quite sure why anyone believes much of anything they have to say any longer. With their history of reversing course for convenience, I can’t help but wonder, should they find themselves reviewing the spending record of a President Romney four years from today, whether they might be tempted to use the Obama numbers as the baseline for such a new Administration."

The above data acquired from one source: DRUGS.

Was it mushrooms, peyote or something synthetic that caused something like that?

Debt grew by over 6 Trillion ... just since 2008

 

[VERDE]

Hey UncleMatt!! A Trillion Here a Trillion There!! What the Heck!! Play another round of golf!! You guys crack me up!! GOOD HUNTING!! VERDE!!