It’s been going around Facebook and the Twitters.
It’s been rated “mostly true” by Politifact.
It is the MarketWatch piece on how Obama hasn’t really increased spending all that much.
And I’m damn tired of picking it apart 140 characters at a time, so I put together this sarcastic infographic showing exactly how sloppy this piece really is.
(Correction: An earlier version of this infographic incorrectly identified the $3.8 Trillion 2013 as a CBO projection. That is the spending request from President Obama 2013 budget.)
UPDATED (05/24/12, 3PM):
There are three things in this infographic that should be called out more explicitly.
First, much of the debate here centers around who exactly should catch the blame for FY 2009 spending. This is actually a very tricky question and I think compelling cases can be made for both sides of this debate.
My personal position is that it’s really complicated. But one thing is for certain: in hindsight the CBO January 2009 estimate is so obviously wrong that using it should be called out and mocked.
The January 2009 CBO estimate might have been a “best estimate of what Obama inherited”, but only in January 2009 when spending data was *very* hard to predict. January 2009 marked the worst part of the recession and the uncertainty was very high. Only a few months later, Obama’s budget estimated 2009 spending would be $400 billion higher than the CBO estimate.
But now we can look at the data, not the estimates. And we should. The spending data ended up $20 billion lower than the CBO estimate… and that included the stimulus spending (which Nutting says was $140 billion, but I’m still trying to track that number down). If that is the case, the high-end estimate for Bush’s fiscal year is $3.38 trillion. If we compare that to Obama’s 2013 budget proposal ($3.80 trillion), that’s an increase of 12.5% (3.1% annualized). Which isn’t that high, but it’s also using a baseline that is still filled with a lot of what were supposed to be 1 time expenses (TARP, Cash for Clunkers, the auto bailout, the housing credit, etc).
Second, Nutting uses the CBO baseline in place of Obama’s spending. This is easily verified and I can’t think of a serious economic pundit who would say this is OK. I can think of two reasons for doing this: Either a) Nutting is a monstrously biased ass who (rightly) figured no one in the liberal world would fact check him so he could use whatever the hell number he wanted to use or b) Nutting had no idea that the CBO baseline isn’t a budget proposal. I’m actually leaning toward the second explanation. Nutting uses so many disparate sources it seems clear he doesn’t know his way around federal finance.
Congrats, Mr. Nutting. I don’t think you’re a huge jerk, only that you’re hilariously unqualified for your job.
Finally, my biggest goal here was to point out the inconsistencies in the analysis. Nutting wants to use the 2009 CBO estimates, but only one column (only for attacking Bush on spending). He wants to compare estimates from one year to actual spending from other years to the CBO baseline from this year. And, as if he is a magical cherry-picking elf, he manages to pick just the right numbers to give him just the right data. This could be an accident. Stranger things have happened. But it seems more likely that he intended to squash a talking point by any means necessary and he went looking for the best data to do that.
I will be accused of massaging the data by people who don’t understand what I’m doing here. I’m pointing out the data massaging on Nutting’s side and calling him on it. I’m saying “If you’re going to use the CBO estimate, use the f***ing CBO estimate!” Don’t use just the part you want and then pretend like the rest of it doesn’t exist. Commit yourself to the data you’re using and follow it, even if it doesn’t go where you want it to go.
OK… references:
Bush requested $3.107 trillion, but the final budget of $3.52 trillion was passed by the Democratic Congress and signed by President Obama on March 12, 2009.
For actual spending, I used the monthly Treasury Reports, which have spending and revenue for every month since 1981 in an Excel file.
For the CBO fiscal year 2009 estimates.
The CBO baseline (which was referenced by Nutting for the $3.58 trillion number) is found here.
President Obama’s actual 2013 budget
And just for kicks, here is the CBO analysis of the President’s Budget which pegs Obama’s 2013 spending at $3.717 trillion.
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Reddit response to your horseshit infographic:
Section by section:
Rule 1:
Neglects to mention TARP and the bailouts passed under Bush
No president has ever renegotiated his inaugural-year budget.
Neglects the “who proposed FY 2009 spending”, which was of course Bush.
Bush low-balling the budget doesn’t make him fiscally conservative, just a wishful thinker who knew he wouldn’t have to deal with the outcome
“Obama gets credits for the jobs from FY 2009” has less to do with the budget and more to do with the stimulus, duhh.
Rule 2:
$20 BILLION THE HORROR the author is literally complaining about 0,06% increase due to this totally dirty secret numbers trick. This got a whole rule to itself, lol.
Rule 3:
All one big extension of the whining about 0,06%
Uses CBO projections from early 2009, when both left, right, and center economists were all underestimating the depth of the recession, and hence government spending (which would rise substantially in response to greater unemployment, even if Obama changed nothing).
Rule 4:
Author is flipping back and forth now between CBO baselines, actual budgets, and proposed budgets, always favoring whichever is highest for Obama
Is he still using the CBO’s projections from 2009? Not clear
Rule 5:
Looks bad for whom? The graph shows spending shrinking under Obama. Maybe he thinks spending rising over time as the economy and population grows is a bad thing? I have no idea what point he was going for.
Bottom line: Author does some half-assed nitpicking, commits a shitload of cherrypicking himself, and never approaches the fundamental claim once, that spending increases under Obama have been less than any Prez since Ike. All he’d have to do to disprove it is pick 1 consistent measurement, chart it, and point out a President under whom spending growth was slower. That’s it, that’s all he had to do was provide 1 counterexample, and he didn’t, instead trying to poke holes to reduce general confidence.
ptpatil,
Thank you for your comment. It is always good to know who values accuracy (which is what my post was really about) and who is just a partisan hack.
You’ve played your hand well and now we all know which one you are.
Shared to facebook and twitter! Thank you!
How do they excuse the Senate for not issuing a budget for the last three years?
Well…not really.
A WSJ article explained how, even if you reassign stimulus spending to Obama (which you should), Bush still outspent Obama.
Additionally, many of the jobs created during and after 2009 were created by the stimulus, so Obama should get credit.
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/obama-spending-binge-never-happened-2012-05-22?pagenumber=1
“Looks bad for whom? The graph shows spending shrinking under Obama. Maybe he thinks spending rising over time as the economy and population grows is a bad thing? I have no idea what point he was going for.”
He was going for the point that the claim uses a ridiculous baseline. The fact that there was huge spending in the year just before he took office doesn’t mean it’s totally cool to spend almost exactly as much several years in a row, and commit us to doing the same indefinitely. The 2009 FY budget is not “normal,” it was high. This isn’t complicated.
PtPatil can take it up with Pethokoukis and call him Horseshit too then…?
Unlikely.
http://blog.american.com/2012/05/actually-the-obama-spending-binge-really-did-happen/
Put another way: you’re not fiscally responsible just because your roommate is worse.
And that’s definitely true when you keep spending that much even as your “income” goes down. The problem is not merely spending, but spending relative to revenue. And by that measure, he’s been horrendous. There’s no way around this.
Did you notice how the $825B stimulus money becomes a new baseline budget not a one time charge! Also the banks paid back ~$400B of the TARP funds (this should be credited back to Bush since he is being debited for the money) but Obama took this money and reallocated it himself so the $400B should be put under Obama spending not Bush.
Did you notice how the $825B stimulus money becomes a new baseline budget not a one time charge! Also the banks paid back ~$400B of the TARP funds (this should be credited back to Bush since he is being debited for the money) but Obama took this money and reallocated it himself so the $400B should be put under Obama spending not Bush.
Obama Admin will lie all the way to November because his record is all about a poor economy, less workers today then when he took office and nearly $6T more in debt.
Excellent analysis. Thank you.
The usual lunacy. How does a budget get wriiten, debated , and enacted without Congress, both Chambers? And who controlled both houses? Yes. the Democrats. So how do they escape blame? Because in the never,never babes in toyland that is modern progressivism [??], that’s what they call themselves, they are only responsible for the Nice Things.
Neglects to mention TARP and the bailouts passed under Bush
…………..
All of which were supported and voted for by Obama and his democratic allies on the Hill.
So Obama didn’t just “inherit” this…he was part of it.
You liberals can spin all you want….but you can’t change the facts:
Debt on 01.19.09: $10,628,881,485,510.23
Debt on 01.20.01: $5,727,776,738,304.64
An increase of:
$4,901,104,747,205.59
Debt 05.01.12: $15,673,229,738,379.98
Debt 01.20.09: $10,626,877,048,913.08
An increase of:
$5,046,352,689,466.90
Bush in office 2,921 days.
Bush deficit spent per day:
$1,677,885,911.40
Obama in office 1,197 days (through 05.01.12).
Obama deficit spends per day:
$4,215,833,491.62
Public debt on 01.20.09:
$6,307,310,739,681.66
Public debt on 05.01.12:
$10,910,025,382,723.66
Obama has increased the nation’s debt held by the public by $4,602,714,643,042 in 1,197 days.
Obama has increased the debt held by the public by 72.97% – SEVENTY-TWO POINT NINETY-SEVEN PERCENT – in 1,197 days.
The $5,046,352,689,466.90 in additional debt that the U.S. government has taken on during the 40 months that Obama has been president is more debt than the Federal government accumulated in the first 219 years of the Republic.
Total Debt = $15,673,229,738,379.98
Total GDP = $15,180,900,000,000.00
Debt-to-GDP = 103.24%
Resist We Much on May 23, 2012 at 12:11 PM
………….
How desperate do you have to be to claim “I didn’t spend that much..it was Bush” four years and trillions of dollars spent into your own adminsitration with democratic majorities.
Epic fail.
Of course we have seen this type of decit from the Obama adminsitrtion for the last 4 years.
Remember Pelosi putting out that chart that stated Obama was responsible for the least amount of debt than other recent Presidents….
……….of course they dropped all of 2009 out to get the numbers they wanted…just like they are trying to do now.
Politifact, WaPo: No, Obama is the “undisputed debt king”
http://hotair.com/archives/2011/09/29/politifact-wapo-no-obama-is-the-undisputed-debt-king/
“Whoever put the chart together used the date for Jan. 20, 2010 — which is exactly one year to the day after Obama was sworn in — rather than his actual inauguration date. We know this because Treasury says the debt for Jan. 20, 2010, was $12.327 trillion, which is the exact number cited on the supporting document that Pelosi’s office gave us.
However this error happened, it effectively took one year of rapidly escalating debt out of Obama’s column and put it into Bush’s, significantly skewing the numbers. …”
Wow…where have we seen this type of cooking the books before…
……..Global warming models…..Obamacare….stimulus…….
……..well yes but this is more “smoke and mirrors” decit coming from democrats.
“Let’s not forget that the Democrats kept Bush out of the loop on the 2009 budget, too, by passing continuing resolutions until Obama took office. He signed the massive omnibus bill passed by a Democrat-controlled Congress in March 2009 to finish that budget. And who ran the House of Representatives at that time, and for the last two years of the Bush presidency? Why, none other than Nancy Pelosi, that’s who.”
….but in liberal land….Obama gets all the credit for any jobs or economic success associated with 2009….but the negative economic ramifications put into play by filibuster proof democratic majorities are all Bush’s fault.
How pathetic liberals are pushing this drivel.
There is an excellent book available online called How to Lie with Statistics.
Mr Nutting (aptly named) appears to have taken it to heart in his “analysis”.
Final Score: Obama Admin – 87, San Antonio Spurs 135.
Associated Press (San Antonio, Tx)
This one was over almost before it started. In the first quarter, Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobil, Tony Parker and company simply shredded the Obama Administration – going for a franchise record 52 first quarter points, and more incredibly, a 52-6 advantage after 1 quarter. Greg Popovich pulled all his starters, and eventually subs, and played with only ball boys and various dance team members after the half, coasting to a 135-87 victory, continuing the Spurs streak of consecutive wins which has been going on almost as long as the lack of a congressional budget. After the game, team captain Barack Obama had this to say: “We got better every quarter. If you look at the box score, we cut scoring and added points in each quarter.” After a long pause due to his teleprompter locking up he continued: “If you compare the point differential from each quarter we cut scoring by over 25% each quarter, while our negative differential improved by over 558% throughout our time on the court. That’s a better differential improvement than that Texas girls basketball team that won 100-0 since you can’t divide by zero. In conclusion, I will now spam every youtube video with an ad showing how we actually outperformed a team that won 100-0 with real facts. Are you in, Julias?” Asked for a comment on Obama’s assessment of the victory, Greg Popovich responded predictably with a blank stare followed by a “Because we made shots and they didn’t.” Despite the depressingly bad outcome, the Obama administration is still confident they can hang with the Wizards.
I can only respond to Tom above with “Tim Duncan for President”.
Fantastic analysis. I will be sharing this in an upcoming blog post at FFN.
Dear liberal friends,
Imagine a woman married to an abusive man. Over the course of 8 years, the violence escalates and takes a sudden rise at the end, before she finally divorces. Her next husband approves of her ex’s level of abuse and keeps it at its highest level for a time before ratcheting it down – though still well above the levels of abuse given by her ex for most of the marriage. Do you call the second husband a romantic? Do you talk about the abuse that never happened? When someone ‘quibbles’ over a single punch (ie Rule 2), do you deride that person because that single punch was such a small part of the abuse (which allegedly isn’t happening anyhow)?
That Obama supporters are using inconsistent indicators is important. What is most important is the context for these numbers. Those who contend that Obama is not a profligate spender are suffering from something analogous to battered person syndrome. Hopefully enough of us are willing to get out of this destructive relationship.
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ptpatil – very good response. This one is funny to me. It is a classic case of Tax tax spend spend vs borrow borrow spend spend. Why did the repubs even make the imaginary Obama spending a talking point like they have been fiscally responsible? I am a true centrist by the way and think both sides are full of sh$t!! One side is just more full of it than the other lately.
Hey ptpatil, can you prove your assertion that, “…that spending increases under Obama have been less than any Prez since Ike.
Why do people like you come to the defense of our moron POTUS?
-Matt
libertyforamericans.wordpress.com
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WHY did spending spike in 2009, while BUSH was President (but by NOWHERE NEAR as much as the deficit)? Why oh why? Could it be because the country underwent a financial SHOCK and entered a minor DEPRESSION that dramatically increased automatic spending on food stamps, unemployment benefits, Medicaid, and other safety-net programs. COULD THAT be the reason that spending went up so much in Bush’s last budget??? Or do we think Congressional Democrats decided to throw a debt party just to celebrate the end of the W catastrophe?
The reasons that the budget goes up BEFORE Obama takes over are still with us, insomuch as the economic crisis is still with us (and, alas, it is). Things would be immeasurably worse if government had cut back on these automatic stabilizers at the same time that individuals and businesses stopped spending their own money. That, in part, is WHY we have safety net programs in the first place. It’s also why we’ve so far avoided the fate of Great Britain.
“Just The Facts,” if you truly are a centrist open to honest considerations of facts, consider this:
First look at the critique contained in Rule 2. The critique is not about the relatively small number of $20 Billion. It’s the principle of claiming Bush caused money to be spent which, in actuality, was never spent. Reddit poster (via ptpatil) dismisses this as a nitpick about the amount. In other words, he missed the point.
This leads him to dismiss Rule 3 as a mere extension of Rule 2. It’s a nice bit of sophistry, saying this is just about the $20 billion amount. Notice what he does next. He makes an excuse for using the non-reality based CBO number in 2009 – and only 2009. The excuse is that politicians were underestimating and disagreeing about the recession in 2009. What he doesn’t address is why we shouldn’t similarly use 2009 CBO numbers for Obama. That shouldn’t pass the smell test for you. Liberals don’t want to use the 2009 CBO numbers consistently because it would reveal that Obama consistently overspent those estimates. We can argue that he was justified in that spending because he too underestimated the recession…but that’s Reddit poster’s argument for using the CBO numbers to begin with!
So let’s look at Rule 4. Reditt poster accuses politicalmathblog of inconsistency…for pointing out inconsistency of liberals’ numbers. After the liberals pick and choose using a 2009 CBO estimate, then using actual spending for following years, then choosing to use a current CBO estimate for 2013, why don’t we use the number that Obama himself is saying he wants to spend?
Liberals are bookending their data with CBO estimates for the sole purpose of improving their own position. It has nothing to do with accuracy. Even the rationales are inconsistent. The 2009 CBO number is used because people in 2009 didn’t know how bad things would be and the number ended up being really close to actual spending (imagine if it underestimated, which number would liberals use then?). We’ve touched on that. The 2013 number is used because… it’s lower than Obama’s estimate.
Let us turn to Rule 5. We can all see Bush increased spending, significantly, especially at the end of his term. And we can see the gradual decrease under Obama. So, Reddit poster’s question is “looks bad for whom?” Compelling stuff, eh?
Okay, now go look at the graph in terms of spending – not trends – as the purpose for which the graph is presented. Obama’s spending year-by-year is far above Bush’s. This goes back to the notion of using baselines of previous years and the significance of the recession as a context. Is an unusually high rate of spending justified by the recession? If yes, let’s recognize that Obama’s spending is very very high, however justified. Despite being an obviously high rate of spending in historical terms (again, look at the graph, using your eyes) do we wish to say it really isn’t high (like ptpatil and company say)…because 2009 is just a baseline year and Bush was president and Obama isn’t spending the same as 2009? You must admit that is silly.
Now let’s get back to Rule 1. There is an argument to be made about who is responsible for what spending in 2009. Obama supported TARP and all of that. Saying Obama had no control to stop policies…which he said he supported is disingenuous. In the end Bush was the president who made it law and there’s no sense quibbling. But neither can we foist the stimulus on Bush’s shoulders. Either way, we should recognize 2009 was a different kind of year – not a valid baseline for all future spending. ptpatil’s poster doesn’t really respond or recognize the debate here, he’s just dismissive.
I loved the following:
“Obama gets credits for the jobs from FY 2009″ has less to do with the budget and more to do with the stimulus, duhh.”
Do you see how much he missed the point? He is comfortable making Bush responsible for stimulus spending…but maintains any job credit goes to Obama. He takes for granted that the stimulus was responsible. Why not credit TARP?
You fell for a shell game, Mr. Facts.
Just to complete the picture:
Spending shot up by 20% in 2009 for a very good reason. At the same time Revenue went down. The difference is the huge deficit. Obama didn’t do it, and trying to avoid it, by cutting 30% of Federal spending overnight would have landed us in Great Depression territory.
The time to trim expense and, yes, raise taxes, was in the years BEFORE the crisis. W squandered the opportunity with his tax cuts and wars.
Yaniv, I agree it would be disastrous to cut spending to match revenue during a recession. But that doesn’t justify any and all new spending.
If we use 2008 as a baseline, we’ve been running a stimulus program of about $600 billion every year. 2009 TARP, Stimulus, etc was supposed to be a one time shot, though many disagree whether those programs did much good.
So hitting a recession in 2008, I agree we shouldn’t have blindly cut spending merely because revenue went down. That says nothing about new spending.
You also forget that we hit a recession during the early 2000s when Bush passed the tax cuts. The deficit is not the root of the problem – it’s the spending. The higher the rate of spending, the greater the likelihood we will suffer large deficits. The solution TAX…and SPEND is a well-known political philosophy.
No liberal dip$hit should ever have the cajones to point an accusing finger at Bush and mention TARP. Our imbecile current president was all for it, and voted for it in the Senate. Trying to blame TARP on Bush is like crying and whining to the cops that, well, yes, it’s true that I emptied the teller’s drawer, but HE was the one who actually pointed the gun and robbed the bank. Man, liberals are complete arrogant douchebags. I shudder to think of what the world is going to be like if these weasels get their way for another four years.
@Yaniv: “…cutting 30% of Federal spending overnight would have landed us in Great Depression territory.”
No, the Great Depression was caused by Federal Reserve going against previous currency policy and causing an artificial dollar crisis (either by incompetence or conspiracy), and prolonged by the sort of expensive new policies that are going on right now such as the Obama administration’s poorly designed healthcare plan, which rather than breaking up the monopoly of the healthcare and insurance complex, seeks instead to consolidate it and throw the expense onto the backs of the taxpayers.
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Go back and look at 1919 and 1948. Both had cuts of this magnitude. 1919 cased the Roaring 20’s, the largest middle-class growth in the last 100 years. 1948 caused the 1950’s, which were the second-largest middle-class growth in the last century. Neither one caused a “great depression” like @yaniv claims.
BaconCrisps
So you DO agree that cutting spending to match revenue during a recession would have been a disaster. Why is that?? Why is it OBVIOUSLY WRONG to cut spending in the face of economic near-cataclysm but OK to effectively cut programs to the most vulnerable, like unemployment, food stamps, and Medicaid? You can quibble with the word “cut,” but when millions of new people lost their jobs and became eligible for these programs in 2008, we had a choice: to sustain those programs and have them do what they were designed to do (and sustain significant deficit spending in the process, on TOP of the revenue shortfall) OR we could have chosen to dramatically raise the bar to entry and DENY these new people their food stamps, unemployment, medical care, etc. Would that have been better? Do you think we’d have a better economy now? Aside from the strong Keynesian argument here, there is simply NO WAY to maintain a real safety net -AND- balanced budgets, or even flat budgets, during severe economic downturns. Keeping the budget flat would have entailed savage austerity in practice, as people whose situations would previously have qualified them for all sorts of help in the past, would have been left to fend for themselves.
You say that many people disagree with TARP or the stimulus doing much good. People disagree about the color of the sky these days. The studies I’ve seen estimate jobs retaines as a result of the stimulus at between 1 and 4 million, but most ECONOMISTS seem to agree that the stimulus did, in fact, help us avoid a significantly deeper downturn. TARP I don’t want to get too far into, because I like the banks even less than then next guy. I might have put them into public receivership and washed out the Augean stables of Wall Street. But letting the financial system collapse entirely? I’m aware that “many” say that would have been the best remedy, but…
Aside from the stimulus (which WAS a one-time thing), what Obama did–rather than putting into place all sorts of expansive new spending measures and government programs, as is often claimed or implied–was for the most to retain the old safety net AS IT WAS. Yes–there have been some extensions of unemployment insurance, but that’s pretty reasonable when there are millions upon millions of long term unemployed, and millions barely getting by, and these are still a drop in the bucket next to the deficits we’ve been running. Yes, there is HCR, but the effect on deficits so far is basically zilch, and may be less than zilch long term. The basic point is that the huge deficits everyone on the Right is suddenly apoplectic over are not remotely the result of “Obama’s expansion of government.” George W Bush did FAR FAR more in new spending, with his expansion of Medicare and the war in Iraq.
Selecting a baseline is always tricky. I’m a biologist and it’s a challenge for us as well. But several things are changing here. Inflation has been 2-3% per year. Population in the US is going up by about 1% yearly. At the same time the economic conditions that pushed millions into the safety net have only partially (maybe 30%) abated. These are all factors that need to be taken into account when considering what the baseline intuitively ought to be (I’m not an economist, and I don’t have the wherewithal to be rigorous about this). Just adding inflation and population growth, we get to about a 10% increase over 3 years, and that’s WITHOUT taking into consideration the increase in safety net spending, or two other VERY important and interconnected factors–the aging of the population and rising healthcare costs (which HCR at least BEGINS to address).
The picture of spending in the last chart supports this narrative. Spending shoots up prior to Obama becoming president, and through the first few months of his presidency, then plateaus and begins to drift down (along with unemployment, not coincidentally). It does not return to pre 2009 levels, because spending on the safety net is still far higher than normal. Meanwhile, inflation, population growth, and baby boomer healthcare and retirement expenses are pushing up the baseline. Barring an economic catastrophe (perhaps brought about by a “successful” debt ceiling stand by TPers in the House) we will NEVER see a return to 2009 levels of spending. And it WASN’T all, or even mostly, Obama’s fault.
@OhioHistorian
What happened RIGHT BEFORE 1920 and 1948???? I’ll give you a clue: the answer rhymes with “boar.” Also, in both cases the economy was firing (haha) on all cylinders and then some when the Federal budget shrank. Do you REALLY think the military budget cuts of 1948 caused the prosperity of the 50’s? REALLY????
Thanks so much for this chart. I’ve saved it and will reference in the future, I’m sure.
I, too, am saving this. I’m also printing it out!!! Every once in a while, someone puts together something truly amazing, and this is IT!!! Many, many thanks for all your hard work!!!
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Look, all you really have to ask is, what was our national debt when Bush left office, and what is our national debt now (and Obama is not through his first term yet)? It is obvious except to morons and DemocRATs (but I repeat myself) that spending must have increased, in fact more than all Presidents combined before him, under Obama, when we now all of a sudden owe more than $16 TRILLION and will owe more than $25 TRILLION if he gets his way and if the idiot Republicans keep agreeing to increase the so-called “debt limit”…
@yaniv
Let’s get to a central issue. You say I “quibble” with the word “cut.” I do not.
I agree we should not cut spending to match revenue just because a recession causes a drop in revenue (though I believe as a general rule spending should match revenue).
Imagine if we were back in 2008. The recession hits. Cutting spending in the face of a recession would be cutting spending levels from what we had in 2008 down to the amount of reduced revenue.
If we increase spending $700 billion in the face of a recession and then cut it by $500 billion (didn’t happen obviously)…we’re still well above pre-recession spending, even accounting for inflation. You want to equate these two scenarios.
So we would not be “effectively [cutting] programs to the most vulnerable, like unemployment, food stamps, and Medicaid [and sustaining] those programs and have them do what they were designed to do (and sustain significant deficit spending in the process, on TOP of the revenue shortfall) …”
We EXPANDED unemployment, we threw money at (not) shovel-ready projects, we threw money at Solyndra and the like, more money at colleges and municipalities, and of course the ACA. You can argue that these were worthwhile expansions but don’t pretend they were regular expenditures in accordance with existing law.
Obviously increased claims for unemployment, food stamps, and Medicaid during a recession expands the deficit. But so much of the increased spending did not go to the regular operation of those programs. You go at length to argue about the extra expenditures being good and worthy. But that is a separate issue from merely cutting spending to accord with whatever revenue happens to be. You tangle the separate issues into one argument, conceding that not all of the spending was in accordance with programs existing in 2008. The point being that increasing spending in a recession and later scaling it back a little bit is not the same as cutting in the face of a recession.
If we’re not going to agree that the increased spending is good and worthy (no matter how reasonable an assumption you think it is) then let’s focus on the actual statistics of spending. Justify them later, but don’t deny them. Obama has spent like crazy compared to the pre-recession spending, even accounting for inflation.
“Selecting a baseline is always tricky.”
Let’s use the baseline for the last “normal” year of 2008 and let’s account for inflation (that’s normally what we do!). Your description of a baseline implicitly makes recession spending the new normal. That is exactly the problem!
“The picture of spending in the last chart supports this narrative. Spending shoots up prior to Obama becoming president, and through the first few months of his presidency, then plateaus and begins to drift down (along with unemployment, not coincidentally).”
But that amount remains well above pre-recession spending, even accounting for inflation. Even accounting for baby boomers and population growth. We can’t pretend that the Stimulus and ACA didn’t happen. They both add significantly to our debt. And we only see the tip of the iceberg for ACA spending in the numbers above. The battle here is over whether Obama has dramatically increased spending. The new normal should not be recession era spending – however justified you believe it to be – because we are not forever in a recession (we hope).
“Barring an economic catastrophe (perhaps brought about by a ‘successful’ debt ceiling stand by TPers in the House) we will NEVER see a return to 2009 levels of spending. And it WASN’T all, or even mostly, Obama’s fault.”
I’m faulting Obama for his increased spending – not the recession. See my analogy in my first post for a more intuitive sense of what’s happening.
Not Chicken Little: you’ll perhaps understand if no one but morons and vermin wants anything to do with you.
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BaconCrisps:
I believe I’ve put forward a cogent and truthful argument. I don’t understand many parts of your rebuttal (what does Solyndra have to do with it?), and frankly don’t have the time or patience to disprove your claims about the fiscal consequences of ACA so far (negligible) or into the future (somewhat speculative, and very likely beneficial).
We won’t agree about the stimulus, obviously, but we know EXACTLY what the stimulus cost. You also do know it was NOT all charged to one year’s budget, right? The bottom line is that ONLY by looking at absolute numbers (or at deficits–even more deceptive), WITHOUT analyzing exactly where spending came from, and without considering what usually happens in severe economic downturns (2001 wasn’t even in the same zipcode) can one conclude that Obama blew up the budget. What happened, deficit wise, has FAR more to do with AUTOMATIC spending on unemployment, Medicaid, food stamps and other safety net programs, and, of course, the lack of revenue.
You stake your case on the 2009 budget including all sorts of anomalous extra spending that then presumably gets sneakily extended ad infinitum… But there is NO sinister new spending in that budget or any other. There are significant increases on spending on the safety net, and there’s the stimulus. THE analysis of NEW spending (as opposed to existing law) under Obama has been done. It demonstrates that Obama, unlike Bush, did not initiate significant new spending, with the exception of the stimulus. Yes: this is one case where EXISTING LAW had severe implications for the deficit. You can argue that EXISTING LAW was terrible and wasteful and should have been immediately amended (that’s called austerity).
You can argue that Obama’s spending on the stimulus and unemployment extension and the payroll tax cuts were horrible policy that didn’t work, and that they are responsible for our fiscal predicament. You can even argue both. And we can both present facts and opinions.
What you can’t legitimately do (in my opinion) is point at the graph of spending or deficits and say: “see it’s OBVIOUS”–as so many people seem to do. This ignores the very real consequences severe economic circumstance we have been in over the past 3 years on both sides of the fiscal ledger.
The rest of it is hand-waving with graphs and extremely tenuous analogies.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/obamas-and-bushs-effect-on-the-deficit-in-one-graph/2011/07/25/gIQAELOrYI_blog.html
Another interesting chart, showing revenues and outlays MIRRORING one another starting in 2009.
http://brickcity.wordpress.com/2011/12/23/10-charts-of-the-year-federal-spending-and-revenues/
The symmetry at the end is uncanny, and it is NOT accidental, or the result of a Democratic plot to spend like crazy JUST AS revenues were falling. Aside from the stimulus, this did not happen. Both trends were caused by the same economic forces.
Should we perhaps give Obama “credit” for the drastic lowering of Federal government revenue as a % of GDP?