Many of the major lefty oriented blogs are touting this – I think to deflect the actual spending orgy that the Obama Administration has actually done. Does anyone not believe that their normal whipping boy – President Bush (hey, isn’t EVERY thing his fault?) is responsible. The problem, as it always is, is in the definition of words and MarketWatch has decided to do just that to save their Obamessiah:
Obama spending binge never happened
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — Of all the falsehoods told about President Barack Obama, the biggest whopper is the one about his reckless spending spree.
As would-be president Mitt Romney tells it: “I will lead us out of this debt and spending inferno.”
Almost everyone believes that Oba
ma has presided over a massive increase in federal spending, an “inferno” of spending that threatens our jobs, our businesses and our children’s future. Even Democrats seem to think it’s true.
But it didn’t happen…
Really? That almost $5 Trillion in debt spending over the last three years didn’t happen?? You just KNEW that any claim like this was going to be challenged and vetted just like Dan Rather was when he was trying to smear then President Bush (and look what happened to Rather). Political Math decided that he had had enough of the Left’s nonsense and “Rathered” (or fisked) them and created a really great infographic on this (full image after the jump). The important part is the definition of WHEN PRESIDENT OBAMA BECOMES RESPONSIBLE. Some data points from the Political Math post:
- 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
There’s a lot of info there and you do need to go and read it. Do so.
