[baltwade]

On top of that, Obama is presiding over the biggest deficits since 1945 and bigger still than the Great-Depression era of the 1930s!

That's a little misleading isn't? You fail to say that the deficits during the Great Depression weren't really all that high compared to recent history. Both Reagan and Bush (I) ran greater deficits than what the Great Depression caused. Also you failed to give any numbers for comparison. The deficit for the 2009 budget year, which was drafted and started under Bush (II) and finished under Obama was the highest since the 40's at a little over 12%. Both Reagan and Bush (I) ran deficits around 8%. The deficit hit during WWII was over 30%.

*all numbers are given as percentage of GDP.

[Soixante-Retard]

Your claim that federal spending under Obama increased has not been disputed...and has indeed been addressed...

What claim? My claim is that Obama has spent more than any other President, nominally and as a percentage of GDP. This is not controversial. My claim has never been that the increases in Obama's spending is more than Bush.

Let's set the record straight, since I've been doing a little research about Nutting's, less than ingenuous, chart.

Nutting attributes the Fiscal Year (FY) of 2009 to George W. Bush, when Bush was only president for 1/3 of FY 2009 and Obama was President for 2/3 of FY 2009. In addition, it was the Democratic majority (111th Congress) who passed and Obama who signed the outlays of the FY 2009 which included the "stimulus" bill. Thus Nutting cannot attribute the FY 2009 to Bush. Note in Nutting's chart he starts Obama at 2010 instead of 2009, significant? Of course, because if we attribute, and rightly so for the aforementioned reason, FY 2009 to Obama then all is not so rosy.

The outlays of FY 2008 under Bush was $2.5 trillion, so that is our base. Using the government's statistics from the Office Of Management and Budget:

Outlays of on-budget:
FY 2009 : $3.0 trillion
FY 2010 : $2.9 trillion
FY 2011 : $3.1 trillion
FY 2012 : $3.3 trillion

Thus, the difference between FY 2012, the last of Obama's first term, and FY 2008 the last of Bush's second term we see:

(3.3 - 2.5)/2.5 = 31.2 % over four years (FY 2009, FY 2010, FY 2011, FY 2012) or an annualized growth of 7% (not the 1.4% claimed by Nutting).

Next time, be independent and work it out for yourself. Don't be fooled by hucksters.

================================

Also you failed to give any numbers for comparison.

Follow the link.

Under Obama

Deficit of 2009 : 9.9 % of GDP
Deficit of 2010 : 8.9 % of GDP
Deficit of 2011 : 8.7 % of GDP

Under Bush I

Deficit of 1989 : 2.8 % of GDP
Deficit of 1990 : 3.9 % of GDP
Deficit of 1991 : 4.5 % of GDP
Deficit of 1992 : 4.7 % of GDP

Under Reagan

Deficit of 1981 : 2.6 % of GDP
Deficit of 1982 : 4.0 % of GDP
Deficit of 1983 : 6.0 % of GDP
Deficit of 1984 : 4.8 % of GDP
Deficit of 1985 : 5.1 % of GDP
Deficit of 1986 : 5.0 % of GDP
Deficit of 1987 : 3.2 % of GDP
Deficit of 1988 : 3.1 % of GDP

Under 1930s

Deficit of 1930 : -0.8 % of GDP
Deficit of 1931 : 0.6 % of GDP
Deficit of 1932 : 4.0 % of GDP
Deficit of 1933 : 4.5 % of GDP
Deficit of 1934 : 5.9 % of GDP
Deficit of 1935 : 4.0 % of GDP
Deficit of 1936 : 5.5 % of GDP
Deficit of 1937 : 2.5 % of GDP
Deficit of 1938 : 0.1 % of GDP
Deficit of 1939 : 3.2 % of GDP

So my assertion:

On top of that, Obama is presiding over the biggest deficits since 1945 and bigger still than the Great-Depression era of the 1930s!

is not misleading but accurate.


UPDATE: The Washington Times is already claiming that Nutting's study has been "discredited".

Mr. Obama is basing his boast on an already discredited study by journalist Rex Nutting that purported to show that “Obama has been the most fiscally moderate president we’ve had in 60 years.” Among other fatal problems with the study is that it omits all spending that took place during the first nine months of the Obama administration, which were the last nine months of fiscal 2009. Thus, all of the initial spending programs to which the White House points with pride - particularly the failed nearly trillion-dollar economic stimulus program - are George W. Bush’s responsibility so far as Mr. Nutting is concerned.

UPDATE: From the New York Times:

Mr. Nutting starts from the first full fiscal year under Mr. Obama, which started Oct. 1, 2009, more than eight months after he took office, because that is the first budget the new president could fully shape. His calculation also assumes that spending will fall in the next fiscal year as currently projected by the Congressional Budget Office.

Counting that way relieves Mr. Obama of any responsibility for any increased spending in his first months in office, when he pushed through Congress a stimulus package of about $800 billion in spending and tax cuts. Between the 2008 fiscal year, the last in which Mr. Bush was president for the full year, and the 2009 fiscal year, when both Mr. Bush and Mr. Obama were president for part of the year, total federal spending increased to $3.5 trillion from $3 trillion, or 17 percent. Each president would like to assign blame for that to the other.

[Rei Murasame]

Joe Liberty, would you be surprised to find that if you were to cut the state to the bone and sack lots of social workers, abolish lots of programmes, and then wait six months, that the insurance premiums you have to pay on everything in the country would begin a sharp rise?

There is nothing for free in life. You pay somehow, the only question is how you are going to pay, and who exactly will do the paying, and the incentives that creates and what society would look like.

[Nattering Nabob]

What claim? My claim is that Obama has spent more than any other President, nominally and as a percentage of GDP. This is not controversial. My claim has never been that the increases in Obama's spending is more than Bush.

Indeed...now admit that the increase in spending is less than any president (not simply Bush) in 60 years as PolitiFact proved...

[Soixante-Retard]

Indeed...now admit that the increase in spending is less than any president (not simply Bush) in 60 years as PolitiFact proved...

Actually I've been doing my own research using the very statistics that Rex Nutting uses and using the FY range that he uses. From FY 2010-2013, the projected total outlays is $14.658 trillion compare that to FY 2006-2009 where the total outlays was $11.883 trillion. Obama's increase (excluding "Bush's" 2009 budget) was (14.658 - 11.883)/11.883 = 23.3 % or an annualized growth of 5.4 % - not the 1.4 % Nutting claims.

So using Nutting's statistics and his FY range, I've shown his claim of 1.4 % annualized growth is nothing but bogus.

You seem to give to much authority to PolitFact and act as if their "proof" is the last word. Nattering Nabob, I won't mock you if you admit you were mistaken. My respect for you would actually increase if you admitted you were wrong instead of desperately trying to salvage something you can't. We all make mistakes now and then especially when we "buy" what others have written.

[Nattering Nabob]

Actually I've been doing my own research using the very statistics...You seem to give to much authority to PolitFact and act as if their "proof" is the last word. Nattering Nabob, I won't mock you if you admit you were mistaken. My respect for you would actually increase if you admitted you were wrong instead of desperately trying to salvage something you can't. We all make mistakes now and then especially when we "buy" what others have written.

Who says right wingers aren't good at comedy?

Now I see why Republicans always get away with increasing federal spending so much after claiming they seriously want to decrease it...

[Soixante-Retard]

Who says right wingers aren't good at comedy?

First, I find it funny that you think I'm "right wing". Second, by resorting to that remark I can only conclude that you have nothing else of value to add to our dialogue. I find it very interesting that you seem to be incompetent at doing a little number-crunching yourself. Here are the statistics Nutting uses (which I have cited previously).

Go ahead, do the crunching yourself. You won't get the magic 1.4 % that Nutting claims. I got Obama at 5.4 % annualized growth compared to Clinton's second term at 3.4 % annualized growth, Bush II's first term at 6.3 % annualized growth and his second term at 7.4 % annualized growth.

So out of those three, Clinton has the lowest annualized growth not Obama.

[Nattering Nabob]

Climate change deniers use the same tactics when they argue climate change..."Those scientists are wrong...here...use my numbers to see why..."

Tell me again why I should use your numbers instead of the ones that PolitiFact used?

[jimjam]

Tell me again why I should use your numbers instead of the ones that PolitiFact used?

He will respect you if you agree with him

[Nattering Nabob]

He will respect you if you agree with him He will respect you if you agree with him

It's good to see someone here my age who remembers the old "I'll respect you in the morning" jokes...

[Soixante-Retard]

Climate change deniers use the same tactics when they argue climate change..."Those scientists are wrong...here...use my numbers to see why..."

Tell me again why I should use your numbers instead of the ones that PolitiFact used?

I can see you have not been paying any attention to what I've been writing because as I've explained ad nauseum they are not my numbers. It is using the exact same data that Rex Nutting has used. That is, Table 1.1—Summary of Receipts, Outlays, and Surpluses or Deficits (-): 1789–2017 from Office of Management and Budget located here: http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/Historicals (this is the third time I've posted this).

Now after actually analyzing the data, this is the chart that is arrived at:




I invite anyone to check the data themselves. Now Nattering Nabob, what do you have left after your asinine comments?

[Nattering Nabob]

I invite anyone to check the data themselves. Now Nattering Nabob, what do you have left after your asinine comments?

Yes...

Someone did check the data themselves, that someone was PolitiFact, and they reported:

Here are the average spending increases per year in raw dollars (not adjusted for inflation) in descending order by president:

Obama 2009-2013 1.4%... Link

Now are you going to tell me why I should believe you and not PolitiFact?

[Soixante-Retard]

Well I've just checked every statistic on Rex Nutting's piece by trying to recreate his statistics and I'll get back to you. You'll be amazed at how sloppy his methodology is.

[Rainbow Crow]

Did you mean to produce a graph where Obama is less than every Republican President? I'm not sure what you're even arguing for now.

[Soixante-Retard]

Ok, after analyzing all of Nutting's data, my conclusion is that he is being uncritically favorable to Obama by using different data sets to arrive at different statistics to get the conclusion he wanted.

Here is how Nutting achieves this sleight of hand. For all the outlays (except 2013, why could this be?) he uses data from the Office Of Managment and Budget (OMB):
(in millions of $)


But then he uses a different data point from a different data set, Congressional Budget Office (CBO), for 2013? Why? Because it's lower than the OMB's data point:

CBO : $3.58 trillion.
OMB : $3.80 trillion.

He then proceeds to use the CBO's statistic with the OMB's statistic for 2009 and annualize the result:

($3.58 - $3.52)/$3.52 = 1.7%

or an annualized result of:

(1.17)^¼ - 1 = 0.4%

Which he claims:

Over Obama’s four budget years, federal spending is on track to rise from $3.52 trillion to $3.58 trillion, an annualized increase of just 0.4%.

But what's wrong with this method, besides using different data points from different data sets (tut tut)? He doesn't use the average spending level, which he should. Why? Imagine that the CBO's statistic for 2013 was less than OMB's statistic for 2009, imagine it was $3.5 trillion. Using Nutting's method, we would conclude that government spending shrank under Obama (ignoring any initial growth)!:

($3.5 - $3.52)/$3.52 = -0.6%

or an annualized result of:

(1.06)^¼ - 1 = -0.14%


So let's use one data set, namely the OMB, and use the average spending level under Obama:

Obama's average spending level is: $3,664,546 (10-13)

Compare that to Bush's average spending level: $2,970,989 (06-09)

So the increase between the two sets of four years is:

($3,664,546 - $2,970,989)/$2,970,989 = 23.3%

or an annualized result of:

(1.23)^¼ - 1 = 5.4%

Conclusion:
Nutting can only get to his 0.4% (which he revises to 1.4%) by a) using different data points from different data sets. b)ignoring any average level of spending. c) focus only on the years 2013 and 2009. Nutting would be an embarrassment to any serious data analyst.

Hence my original chart is valid and more honest than Nutting's:



=====

Edit: If all that was too difficult for you to understand, I'll put it like this:

Imagine the guy before me, in his last year spent $100 and in my first year I spend $250, the second year I spend $200, the third year I spend $150 and the final year I spend $102. Would you conclude from this that I only increased spending by 2%? Or an annualized growth of (1.02)^¼ - 1 = 0.5%? No, of course you wouldn't! (But by Nutting's methodology you would). You'd rightly ask for my average level of spending, which is $175.5 and compare it to the previous guy's average level of spending which is, for sake of argument we'll take, $100. Then the growth is ($175.5-$100)/$100 = 75.5% or an annualized growth rate of (1.755)^¼ - 1 = 15% not 0.5%!

So Obama's annualized growth rate is 5.4% not 1.4% and Clinton's was lower than Obama's at 3.4%. So Nutting's conclusion:

...under Obama, federal spending is rising at the slowest pace since Dwight Eisenhower...

is false. Patently false.

[Soixante-Retard]

The Washington Post's Fact Checker gave Nutting's analysis "Three Pinocchios" meaning:

Significant factual error and/or obvious contradictions.

You can check it out here. The Washington Post article corroborates my analysis.

[Rainbow Crow]

I think the main point is that he's lower than every recent Republican. Eisenhower's federal budgets are not relevant any longer. Comparing the Republican party from then to now would make for a good joke.

[Soixante-Retard]

Obama is lower than Bush 43 (not sure about 41), but not lower than Reagan or Clinton (in real terms), I think.

[JaxsonRaine]

In my mind, that story is kind of like the following.

A family has an average annual budget of $45,000, and it has been increasing by $5,000 per year. Last year, though, the husband had a major surgery that cost them $100,000, so their total budget last year was $145,000. This year, would they be doing well if they 'only' spent $150,000?

Not really. If you have 1-2 years with extremely large expenditures that are supposed to be one-time, then having a continual increase on top of that is not a good thing.

[JaxsonRaine]

Here's a chart showing what I mean. This budget grows by 4% every year. In 2007 there was a one-time expense of $100,000. Technically, the budget still grows 4% every year after that, but it doesn't mean the person in charge of the budget is being responsible about it. It's an exaggerated example, but it should show the point. Recovery spending wasn't supposed to be the new benchmark, it should have been a statistical anomaly. Now it's the new trend.

So even if that figure is right, it's clearly misleading.