FactCheck.org : Obama?s Spending: ?Inferno? or Not?
Obama increased fiscal 2009 spending by at most $203 billion
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Fiscal 2009 began Oct. 1, 2008. That was before Obama was elected, and nearly four months before he took office on Jan. 20, 2009.
President Bush signed the massive spending bill under which the government was operating when Obama took office. That was Sept. 30, 2008. As The Associated Press noted, it combined “a record Pentagon budget with aid for automakers and natural disaster victims, and increased health care funding for veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.”
Bush also signed, on Oct. 3, 2008, a bank bailout bill that authorized another $700 billion to avert a looming financial collapse (though not all of that would end up being spent in fiscal 2009, and Obama later signed a measure reducing total authorized bailout spending to $475 billion).
On Jan. 7, 2009 — two weeks before Obama took office — the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office issued its regular budget outlook, stating: “CBO projects that the deficit this year will total $1.2 trillion.”
CBO attributed the rapid rise in spending to the bank bailout and the federal takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – plus rising costs for unemployment insurance and other factors driven by the collapsing economy (which shed 818,000 jobs in January alone).
Another factor beyond Obama’s control was an automatic 5.8 percent cost of living increase announced in October 2008 and given to Social Security beneficiaries in January 2009. It was the largest since 1982. Social Security spending alone rose $66 billion in fiscal 2009, and Medicare spending, driven by rising medical costs, rose $39 billion.
How Much Did Obama Add?
But it’s also true that Obama signed a number of appropriations bills, plus other legislation and executive orders, that raised spending for the remainder of fiscal 2009 even above the path set by Bush. By our calculations,
Obama can be fairly assigned responsibility for a maximum of $203 billion in additional spending for that year.
It can be argued that the total should be lower.
Economist Daniel J. Mitchell of the libertarian CATO Institute — who once served on the Republican staff of the Senate Finance Committee — has put the figure at $140 billion.