So even if you absolve Obama of responsibility for the initial growth spike, he still presided over unprecedented spending that was out of line with the existing growth trend. Obama’s average spending is far higher than under Bush or Clinton on both adjusted dollar levels and as a percentage of the economy. Until Barack Obama took office in 2009, the United States had never spent more than 23.5% of GDP, with the exception of the World War II years of 1942-1946. Here’s the Obama spending record: – 25.2% of GDP in 2009 – 24.1% of GDP in 2010 – 24.1% of GDP in 2011 – 24.3% (estimates by the White House ) in 2012 What’s more, if Obama wins another term, spending—according to his own budget—would never drop below 22.3% of GDP. If that forecast is right, spending during Obama’s eight years in office would average 23.6% of GDP. That’s higher than any single previous non-war year. Yet financial columnist Rex Nutting of MarketWatch tries to portray the president as being downright stingy in a piece entitled, stunningly, “Obama spending binge never happened”: As the chart indicates, Nutting arrives at that 1.4% number by assigning 2009—when spending surged nearly 20%—to George W. Bush: “The 2009 fiscal year, which Republicans count as part of Obama’s legacy, began four months before Obama moved into the White House. The major spending decisions in the 2009 fiscal year were made by George W. Bush and the previous Congress. Like a relief pitcher who comes into the game with the bases loaded, Obama came in with a budget in place that called for spending to increase by hundreds of billions of dollars in response to the worst economic and financial calamity in generations.” Let me complete the metaphor for Nutting: “Then as those runners scored, Obama kept putting more on base.” 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. The above taken from aei-ideas.org/2012/05/actually-the-obama-spending-binge-really-did-happen/ So, basically my friends, although it is/has been told by media that spending is slowing down the base rate is set as higher than ever....
Posted on: Mon, 28 Jul 2014 19:50:31 +0000