By Sahil Kapur
The conventional wisdom that President Obama has overseen a dramatic surge in government spending has always been shaky. But it faces perhaps its starkest rebuttal in new figures that reveal the sharpest decline of the last half-century in real federal, state and local spending during this presidency.
Perhaps not coincidentally, the new figures in the Federal Reserve Economic Data arrive just days after a lousy jobs report that has exacerbated fears that the economy may be in worse shape than expected. In recent years, state and local governments have received little federal aid to close their budget shortfalls and have therefore made large spending cuts since Obama’s 2009 stimulus expired.
The government spending cuts have come about amid a mood of austerity incubated by Republicans across the country shortly after Obama took office.
More: CHART: Are Sharp Spending Cuts Under Obama Hurting The Recovery? | TPMDC
