I was right: Under Obama, spending has been flat - Rex Nutting - MarketWatch
No matter how you measure it, FEDERAL SPENDING hasnt increased much, if at all, under Obama
Get it through your heads, cons. It's amazing one has to explain that Obama did not spend 7 trillion dollars.
In May 2012, I wrote a column that concluded that there had been no massive binge in federal spending under Obama, as commonly believed. The column went viral after the president, his press secretary and his re-election campaign mentioned it favorably. Conservative pundits flogged me mercilessly, saying that I had manipulated the data and made overly generous assumptions about the likely path of spending in the last two years of Obamas first term.
It turns out my assumptions werent generous enough. Last week, the Treasury Department announced that federal spending fell 2.3% to $3.45 trillion in fiscal 2013 after dropping 1.8% in 2012. It was the largest annual decline in federal spending since 1955, and the first time spending had fallen two years in a row since 1954-55, at the end of the Korean War...
In the four years since 2009, the final budget year under President George W. Bush, federal spending has fallen by $63 billion, or 0.45%. Its the first decline in federal spending over a four-year presidential term since Harry Truman sat in the Oval Office just after World War II.
To really judge how much spending has increased under Obama, that additional FY2009 spending must be apportioned to Obama. In a further adjustment suggested by many of my critics, well exclude the Troubled Asset Relief Program and the bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which were approved in late 2008, when Bush was a lame duck. These one-time programs raised the 2009 baseline to which were comparing Obamas spending, and they lowered net outlays in recent years as they were paid back. Including them makes Obamas spending look slower than it really was.
To really judge how much spending has increased under Obama, that additional FY2009 spending must be apportioned to Obama. In a further adjustment suggested by many of my critics, well exclude the Troubled Asset Relief Program and the bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which were approved in late 2008, when Bush was a lame duck. These one-time programs raised the 2009 baseline to which were comparing Obamas spending, and they lowered net outlays in recent years as they were paid back. Including them makes Obamas spending look slower than it really was.
In real terms, spending rose 0.8% per year during Obamas four years, the lowest since the 0.6% growth in Bill Clintons first term and the second lowest since inflation-adjusted spending fell 1.1% in Eisenhowers first term.
The U.S. population grew at a 0.8% annual rate during Obamas four years, which means that real federal spending per person was flat under his watch.
...And our government didnt lift a finger. We had some brief stimulus, but it faded and was soon replaced with spending cuts....
No matter how you measure it, FEDERAL SPENDING hasnt increased much, if at all, under Obama
Get it through your heads, cons. It's amazing one has to explain that Obama did not spend 7 trillion dollars.