Republicans lie about "explosion of spending" under Obama

[g5000]

Mandatory spending is expected to increase as a share of GDP. This is due in part to demographic trends, as the number of workers continues declining relative to those receiving benefits. For example, the number of workers per retiree was 5.1 in 1960; this declined to 3.0 in 2010 and is projected to decline to 2.2 by 2030.

United States federal budget - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Baby boomers retiring, sucking up entitlements.

 

[g5000]

Total Federal government spending by year

2000: $1.789 trillion.

2001: $1.863 trillion. (8.3% increase over 2000)

2002: $2.011 trillion. (7.9% increase over 2001)

2003: $2.159 trillion. (7.4% increase over 2002)

2004: $2.293 trillion. (6.2% increase over 2003)

2005: $2.472 trillion. (8.0% increase over 2004)

2006: $2.655 trillion. (7.4% increase over 2005)

2007: $2.729 trillion. (2.8% increase over 2006)

2008: $2.983 trillion. (9.2% increase over 2007)

2009: $3.518 trillion. (17.9% increase over 2008)

2010: $3.456 trillion. (1.8% decrease over 2009)

2011: $3.601 trillion. (4.2% increase over 2011)


If we attribute 2009 - 20011 to Obama, we see spending has increased by 20.7 percent in his first three years.

If we attribute 2001 - 2003 to Bush, we see spending increased by 20.7 percent in his first three years!


Amazing!

 

[g5000]

I never even knew Bush increased spending by the exact same rate as Obama until just now. I thought with the stimulus Obama would be somewhat ahead.

Holy...shit.

During Bush's time in office, government spending increased by 66.7 percent.

Two thirds.

The numbers don't lie, folks.

 

[g5000]

Save this topic for reference.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Spending has increased. you're not denying that are you?

The rate of increase has not.

But revenues have plunged.

If you are increasing spending at the same rate you always have, but have much less money coming in, your debt is going to explode.

Tax revenues have averaged approximately 18.3% of gross domestic product (GDP) over the 1970-2009 period, generally ranging plus or minus 2% from that level. Tax revenues are significantly affected by the economy. Recessions typically reduce government tax collections as economic activity slows. For example, tax revenues declined from $2.5 trillion in 2008 to $2.1 trillion in 2009, and remained at that level in 2010. During 2009, individual income taxes declined 20%, while corporate taxes declined 50%. At 14.9% of GDP, the 2009 and 2010 collections were the lowest level of the past 50 years.

United States federal budget - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The rate of spending has not gone up? Spending for this year is projected to be 25% of GDP, revenues have never been high enough to cover that.

 

[Care4all]

Spending has increased. you're not denying that are you?

The rate of increase has not.

But revenues have plunged.

If you are increasing spending at the same rate you always have, but have much less money coming in, your debt is going to explode.

Tax revenues have averaged approximately 18.3% of gross domestic product (GDP) over the 1970-2009 period, generally ranging plus or minus 2% from that level. Tax revenues are significantly affected by the economy. Recessions typically reduce government tax collections as economic activity slows. For example, tax revenues declined from $2.5 trillion in 2008 to $2.1 trillion in 2009, and remained at that level in 2010. During 2009, individual income taxes declined 20%, while corporate taxes declined 50%. At 14.9% of GDP, the 2009 and 2010 collections were the lowest level of the past 50 years.

United States federal budget - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The rate of spending has not gone up? Spending for this year is projected to be 25% of GDP, revenues have never been high enough to cover that.

he didn't say that Q

he said the trending rate of spending as a percentage, that occurred in the years previous to obama, were higher.....

AS EXAMPLE ONLY: the gvt increased spending by 10% each previous year but under obama the spending increased by only 5%

type of thingy

 

[Quantum Windbag]

The rate of increase has not.

But revenues have plunged.

If you are increasing spending at the same rate you always have, but have much less money coming in, your debt is going to explode.

United States federal budget - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The rate of spending has not gone up? Spending for this year is projected to be 25% of GDP, revenues have never been high enough to cover that.

he didn't say that Q

he said the trending rate of spending as a percentage, that occurred in the years previous to obama, were higher.....

AS EXAMPLE ONLY: the gvt increased spending by 10% each previous year but under obama the spending increased by only 5%

type of thingy

He is wrong.

 

[ilia25]

the huge deficits came from spending, not the tax breaks...sheesh.

Um, I don't remember mentioning the tax breaks. There was a big fall in tax revenues when the recession started -- many businesses took a loss, many people lost their job and stopped paying income taxes. That fall in revenues has been the cause of the deficits.

um, I guess when you posted, "Wrong. The deficits and excessive borrowing came from Bush's tax cuts."
You were just parsing the word tax cuts and tax breaks.
I can really see the difference that you're talking about now.

Funny how some people have no trouble finding an obscure post when they need it, yet some other things I write seem to fall on deaf ears no matter how many times I repeat them

The difference that you were asking about is between the structural deficit resulting from Bush's tax cuts, and cyclical deficit resulting from recession and ensuing fall in the tax revenues. In other words, the explosion of deficits from 0.18 trillion in 2007 to 1.4 trillion in 2009 was a rise in cyclical deficit -- and that is the object of "Obama's big government" lie.

But the fact that we had deficit even in 2007, which was the peak of the last cycle, means US had structural deficits -- they did not collect enough tax revenue even when the economy was at full steam. That is what my quote above was about.

 

[ilia25]

There has been an explosion in DEFICIT spending. Regardless of the reasons or excuses, the President of the country gets the blame (or credit) Sorry Obama, blaming Bush won't work anymore.

No.... the decision was made to run up the debt rather than cut spendng to match revenue.
Nothing -forces- the government to spend anything, and so there's no way to argue that the money -had- to be borrowed.

Well, I guess I just have to keep posting these links:
Why government must keep spending through recession
The paradox of thrift

The economy during a recession is a paradox -- what was a virtue in the good times becomes a vice.

Nothing you have posted changes the fact that deficit spending is a willful choice.

I never disputed the fact that US has been running deficits by a willful choice of its government. But that choice saved the economy from a complete collapse -- so that was the right thing to do!

 

[ilia25]

The rate of spending has not gone up? Spending for this year is projected to be 25% of GDP, revenues have never been high enough to cover that.

he didn't say that Q

he said the trending rate of spending as a percentage, that occurred in the years previous to obama, were higher.....

AS EXAMPLE ONLY: the gvt increased spending by 10% each previous year but under obama the spending increased by only 5%

type of thingy

He is wrong.

Yes, I totally see that explosion in spending! By the way, that spike you see in 2009 -- it was the fiscal year, which began on October 1 of 2008.



Just so you know how a real explosion looks like, here is how the deficits jumped at that time:

And here is what really caused the jump in the deficits (funny how the right-wing site I have been using for charts does not have one for the government revenues):

 

[ilia25]

Spending for this year is projected to be 25% of GDP, revenues have never been high enough to cover that.

Sure, and you know why spending is so high relative to GDP? For the same reason the government does not collect enough tax revenues -- because GDP is down!

And yes, the day Obama took the oath GDP had been falling like a rock for 4 months:

Using the figure of spending relative to GDP as an indication of a huge growth of the government under Obama, is just another incarnation of the same lie.

 

[ilia25]

Why, exactly, do you think that He won't run $1,200B deficits thru the end of His 2nd term?

Because the economy will probably improve, which will lead to rising government revenues, which will reduce the sums that the government has to borrow in order to pay for the military and to send those social security checks.

So.... you dont have any REAL reason to think so, just a hope.

No, it is not just a hope, I just did not want to go into details. The fact is that economy will eventually come out of depression and the unemployment will fall to the pre-crisis level. To understand why, you have to understand why the crisis happened in the first place -- it was because households took too much debt. So when the hopes of further fast growth evaporated, the households cut on their spending, sending the economy into a recession (the sales fell, businesses had to lay off workers -- you've got the picture).

But since then the private sector significantly reduced its indebtedness. Consumers are about to start spending again, and businesses will start hiring to satisfy the increased demand. It very well could happen this year -- although one has to be careful with predictions. We had a few false starts before, and the situation in Europe looks grim. Which is ironic because Europeans are in trouble because they are doing the same mistake that you are blaming Obama for NOT doing -- they are aggressively trying to cut spending in order to reduce the deficits, and so far the only result is their sliding into recession.

You also fail to address the growth of spending relative to the growth of revenue

Please, stop accusing me of failing to do something that no one asked! The reason revenues will grow faster than spending is that the economy will be growing faster once it really starts to pick up the slack -- that is when the unemployment rate will start coming down. In fact, the high unemployment is the root cause of the depressed tax revenues and the swollen deficits. So fall in the unemployment rate will automatically reduce the deficits.

 

[ilia25]

I thought with the stimulus Obama would be somewhat ahead.

The sad truth is that we didn't really have all that much of a stimulus. Note that at the same time the local governments were actually reducing their spendings, so the total spending (fed plus state plus local) was growing slower after the crisis started than before:

And that is Obama's real fault -- he (or, rather his advisers) underestimated the depth of the recession and the size of the stimulus needed for a quick recovery. Not only it left the economy depressed and millions unemployed for years. It also gave the conservatives an excuse to claim that any stimulus is a waste.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Yes, I totally see that explosion in spending! By the way, that spike you see in 2009 -- it was the fiscal year, which began on October 1 of 2008.

Nice try.

The fiscal year 2009 budget was actually signed by Obama, that puts all that spending you are trying to spill onto Bush on Obama.

National Coalition for Homeless Veterans - President Obama Signs FY 2009 Budget into Law

The idea was to give Obama complete credit for the recovery everyone expected that summer. It backfired because the summer of recovery never happened.

And here is what really caused the jump in the deficits (funny how the right-wing site I have been using for charts does not have one for the government revenues):[/QUOTE]

Could that be because right wing sites understand that a drop in revenue does not cause a deficit? Since you obviously do not have a dictionary here is the definition of deficit spending.

Government spending, in excess of revenue, of funds raised by borrowing rather than from taxation.

Look at that, spending in excess of revenue. Notice how a lack of revenue does not cause defict spending? Do you also notice that the government has to spend more money than it earns? The only way to run a deficit is to spend more than you make, and the government spent $1.4 trillion more than it made in 2009, most of that came out of one spending bill that was named the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, commonly called the stimulus. If Obama had not signed that bill the deficit for 2009 would have been just over $500 billion even with the drop in revenue.

Isn't it funny how, even without additional stimulus packages to inflate the deficit, we still are running $1 trillion dollar deficits?

You really should give this up, the numbers are not on your side.

 

[Greenbeard]

The only way to run a deficit is to spend more than you make, and the government spent $1.4 trillion more than it made in 2009, most of that came out of one spending bill that was named the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, commonly called the stimulus. If Obama had not signed that bill the deficit for 2009 would have been just over $500 billion even with the drop in revenue.

"The Budget and Economic Outlook: Fiscal Years 2009 to 2019," issued in January 2009 before Obama's inauguration:

• CBO projects that the deficit this year will total $1.2 trillion, or 8.3 percent of GDP. Enactment of an economic stimulus package would add to that deficit. In CBO’s baseline, the deficit for 2010 falls to 4.9 percent of GDP, still high by historical standards.
• CBO expects federal revenues to decline by $166 billion, or 6.6 percent, from the amount in 2008. The combination of the recession and sharp drops in the value of assets—most significantly in publicly traded stock—is expected to lead to sizable declines in receipts, especially from individual and corporate income taxes.
• According to CBO’s estimates, outlays this year will include more than $180 billion to reflect the present-value of the net cost of transactions under the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), which was created in the fall of 2008. (Broadly speaking, that cost is the purchase price minus the present value, adjusted for market risk, of any estimated future earnings from holding purchased assets and the proceeds from the eventual sale of them.) The TARP has the authority to enter into agreements to purchase assets totaling up to $700 billion outstanding at any one time, but the net cost over time will be much less than that amount.
• The deficit for 2009 also incorporates CBO’s estimate of the cost to the federal government of the recent takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Because those entities were created and chartered by the government, are responsible for implementing certain government policies, and are currently under the direct control of the federal government, CBO has concluded that their operations should be reflected in the federal budget. Recognizing that cost in 2009 adds about $240 billion (in discounted present-value terms) to the deficit this year.
• Economic factors have also boosted spending on programs such as those providing unemployment compensation and nutrition assistance as well as those with cost-of-living adjustments. (Such adjustments for 2009 are large because most of them are based on the growth in the consumer price index over the four quarters ending in the third quarter of 2008.)

 

[Intense]

It is not only what you borrow, it is what you do with what you borrow.

It is not only what you spend, it is what you spend it on.

You blindly encourage and exploit incompetence and waste with other peoples hard earned money.

You want to piss it away and throw it away, convincing yourselves that you are doing good with it. Your Premise is flawed. You have no return because you blindly spend without thought to consequence. The Haves, Invest, The Have Not's spend, and have not, because they waste. Redistribution is Theft, not Virtue, it is not Justice, unless it is your own Property that you dispense.

Excuse me for asking, but are you a human? Because that post looks like something a bot would generate.

More like Bots like you are determining what, when, and how to spend in ways that they can enrich Certain PC Groups on our dime. Spending is out of control. Why are you enabling it? You know that if you ran your personal affairs after this model, you would be behind bars. How about knocking off the shit Jackass, and Support Balanced Budgets. Government living within it's means. The Riches, belong in Our Bank Accounts. There is one way to make that happen. We are no where near that path. Everyday you repress Retirement Investment Income Interest, you are cheating us all blind. Who are you enabling again, Fuck Head?

 

[Meister]

Um, I don't remember mentioning the tax breaks. There was a big fall in tax revenues when the recession started -- many businesses took a loss, many people lost their job and stopped paying income taxes. That fall in revenues has been the cause of the deficits.

um, I guess when you posted, "Wrong. The deficits and excessive borrowing came from Bush's tax cuts."
You were just parsing the word tax cuts and tax breaks.
I can really see the difference that you're talking about now.

Funny how some people have no trouble finding an obscure post when they need it, yet some other things I write seem to fall on deaf ears no matter how many times I repeat them

The difference that you were asking about is between the structural deficit resulting from Bush's tax cuts, and cyclical deficit resulting from recession and ensuing fall in the tax revenues. In other words, the explosion of deficits from 0.18 trillion in 2007 to 1.4 trillion in 2009 was a rise in cyclical deficit -- and that is the object of "Obama's big government" lie.

But the fact that we had deficit even in 2007, which was the peak of the last cycle, means US had structural deficits -- they did not collect enough tax revenue even when the economy was at full steam. That is what my quote above was about.

I was only responding to a rediculous claim that you posted. You can call it obscure all you want, but you were dead wrong and I called you on it. Like another poster stated.....you moved the goal posts, son.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

Hell, if you stop counting spending after April, we don't even have a deficit!

 

[Quantum Windbag]

The only way to run a deficit is to spend more than you make, and the government spent $1.4 trillion more than it made in 2009, most of that came out of one spending bill that was named the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, commonly called the stimulus. If Obama had not signed that bill the deficit for 2009 would have been just over $500 billion even with the drop in revenue.

"The Budget and Economic Outlook: Fiscal Years 2009 to 2019," issued in January 2009 before Obama's inauguration:

• CBO projects that the deficit this year will total $1.2 trillion, or 8.3 percent of GDP. Enactment of an economic stimulus package would add to that deficit. In CBO’s baseline, the deficit for 2010 falls to 4.9 percent of GDP, still high by historical standards.
• CBO expects federal revenues to decline by $166 billion, or 6.6 percent, from the amount in 2008. The combination of the recession and sharp drops in the value of assets—most significantly in publicly traded stock—is expected to lead to sizable declines in receipts, especially from individual and corporate income taxes.
• According to CBO’s estimates, outlays this year will include more than $180 billion to reflect the present-value of the net cost of transactions under the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), which was created in the fall of 2008. (Broadly speaking, that cost is the purchase price minus the present value, adjusted for market risk, of any estimated future earnings from holding purchased assets and the proceeds from the eventual sale of them.) The TARP has the authority to enter into agreements to purchase assets totaling up to $700 billion outstanding at any one time, but the net cost over time will be much less than that amount.
• The deficit for 2009 also incorporates CBO’s estimate of the cost to the federal government of the recent takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Because those entities were created and chartered by the government, are responsible for implementing certain government policies, and are currently under the direct control of the federal government, CBO has concluded that their operations should be reflected in the federal budget. Recognizing that cost in 2009 adds about $240 billion (in discounted present-value terms) to the deficit this year.
• Economic factors have also boosted spending on programs such as those providing unemployment compensation and nutrition assistance as well as those with cost-of-living adjustments. (Such adjustments for 2009 are large because most of them are based on the growth in the consumer price index over the four quarters ending in the third quarter of 2008.)

Funny how nothing you posted actually contradicts my statement. Or did you think I do not blame Bush for the fact that he constantly ran a deficit by spending more money than the government earned? Unlike you, I am not a partisan, and have publicly stated on this board that Bush is responsible for everything he signed, just like Obama is.

 

[Greenbeard]

If Obama had not signed that bill [ARRA] the deficit for 2009 would have been just over $500 billion even with the drop in revenue.

"The Budget and Economic Outlook: Fiscal Years 2009 to 2019," issued in January 2009 before Obama's inauguration:

• CBO projects that the deficit this year will total $1.2 trillion, or 8.3 percent of GDP. Enactment of an economic stimulus package [ARRA] would add to that deficit.