TruthOut10
Active Member
- Dec 3, 2012
- 627
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House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosis (D-CA) claim this weekend that the government doesnt have a spending problem has been met with typical outrage from Republican politicians (and several members of the Washington media) who have spent the greater part of the last three years arguing that reining in Americas supposed out-of-control government spending would put the country on a more stable economic footing. There is, however, no basis to those claims, as actual evidence points in the opposite direction.
As this chart from Slates Matt Yglesias shows, overall government spending has plateaued under President Obama after rising sharply under George W. Bush and during Obamas first year in office, when the economic recovery act went into effect.
In fact, the reduction in growth of spending under Obama is unprecedented in the last half-century, and government spending under Obama is growing at the slowest rate since Dwight Eisenhower was president:
This reduction in spending, however, is not necessarily a good thing. This chart, flagged by Brian Beutler, highlights how perilous rapid fiscal contraction can be. As Investors Business Daily notes, The federal budget deficit has never fallen as fast as its falling now without a coincident recession. Even during the 1990s, a time of rapid economic expansion and low unemployment, the deficit fell only half as fast as it is scheduled to in 2013. The Congressional Budget Office, meanwhile, estimates that full implementation of the sequester (factored into this 2013 projection) will significantly dampen economic growth:
Three Charts That Show America Doesn't Have A Spending Problem | ThinkProgress
As this chart from Slates Matt Yglesias shows, overall government spending has plateaued under President Obama after rising sharply under George W. Bush and during Obamas first year in office, when the economic recovery act went into effect.
In fact, the reduction in growth of spending under Obama is unprecedented in the last half-century, and government spending under Obama is growing at the slowest rate since Dwight Eisenhower was president:
This reduction in spending, however, is not necessarily a good thing. This chart, flagged by Brian Beutler, highlights how perilous rapid fiscal contraction can be. As Investors Business Daily notes, The federal budget deficit has never fallen as fast as its falling now without a coincident recession. Even during the 1990s, a time of rapid economic expansion and low unemployment, the deficit fell only half as fast as it is scheduled to in 2013. The Congressional Budget Office, meanwhile, estimates that full implementation of the sequester (factored into this 2013 projection) will significantly dampen economic growth:
Three Charts That Show America Doesn't Have A Spending Problem | ThinkProgress
