Official "Ernst is a deceiving bully and George is a meanie" thread

[cheesehead]

"Obama spending binge never happened

Commentary: Government outlays rising at slowest pace since 1950s"

http://articles.marketwatch.com/2012...drunken-sailor

Originally Posted by Rex Nutting

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 Obama 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.

... showing the effectiveness of Republican counterfactual propaganda.

But it didn’t happen. Although there was a big stimulus bill under Obama, federal spending is rising at the slowest pace since Dwight Eisenhower brought the Korean War to an end in the 1950s.

Even hapless Herbert Hoover managed to increase spending more than Obama has.

Here are the facts, according to the official government statistics:

• In the 2009 fiscal year — the last of George W. Bush’s presidency — federal spending rose by 17.9% from $2.98 trillion to $3.52 trillion. Check the official numbers at the Office of Management and Budget.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/Historicals

• In fiscal 2010 — the first budget under Obama — spending fell 1.8% to $3.46 trillion.

• In fiscal 2011, spending rose 4.3% to $3.60 trillion.

• In fiscal 2012, spending is set to rise 0.7% to $3.63 trillion, according to the Congressional Budget Office’s estimate of the budget that was agreed to last August.

• Finally in fiscal 2013 — the final budget of Obama’s term — spending is scheduled to fall 1.3% to $3.58 trillion. Read the CBO’s latest budget outlook.

http://www.cbo.gov/publication/42905

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%.

There has been no huge increase in spending under the current president, despite what you hear.

Why do people think Obama has spent like a drunken sailor? It’s in part because of a fundamental misunderstanding of the federal budget.

What people forget (or never knew) is that the first year of every presidential term starts with a budget approved by the previous administration and Congress. The president only begins to shape the budget in his second year. It takes time to develop a budget and steer it through Congress — especially in these days of congressional gridlock.

The 2009 fiscal year, which Republicans count as part of Obama’s legacy, began four months before Obama moved into the White House. The major spending decisions in the 2009 fiscal year were made by George W. Bush and the previous Congress.

Like a relief pitcher who comes into the game with the bases loaded, Obama came in with a budget in place that called for spending to increase by hundreds of billions of dollars in response to the worst economic and financial calamity in generations.

By no means did Obama try to reverse that spending. Indeed, his budget proposals called for even more spending in subsequent years. But the Congress (mostly Republicans but many Democrats, too) stopped him. If Obama had been a king who could impose his will, perhaps what the Republicans are saying about an Obama spending binge would be accurate.

Yet the actual record doesn’t show a reckless increase in spending. Far from it.

Before Obama had even lifted a finger, the CBO was already projecting that the federal deficit would rise to $1.2 trillion in fiscal 2009. The government actually spent less money in 2009 than it was projected to, but the deficit expanded to $1.4 trillion because revenue from taxes fell much further than expected, due to the weak economy and the emergency tax cuts that were part of the stimulus bill.

The projected deficit for the 2010-13 period has grown from an expected $1.7 trillion in January 2009 to $4.4 trillion today. Lower-than-forecast revenue accounts for 73% of the $2.7 trillion increase in the expected deficit. That’s assuming that the Bush and Obama tax cuts are repealed completely.

When Obama took the oath of office, the $789 billion bank bailout had already been approved. Federal spending on unemployment benefits, food stamps and Medicare was already surging to meet the dire unemployment crisis that was well underway. See the CBO’s January 2009 budget outlook.

http://www.cbo.gov/publication/41753

Obama is not responsible for that increase, though he is responsible (along with the Congress) for about $140 billion in extra spending in the 2009 fiscal year from the stimulus bill, from the expansion of the children’s health-care program and from other appropriations bills passed in the spring of 2009.

If we attribute that $140 billion in stimulus to Obama and not to Bush, we find that spending under Obama grew by about $200 billion over four years, amounting to a 1.4% annualized increase.

After adjusting for inflation, spending under Obama is falling at a 1.4% annual pace — the first decline in real spending since the early 1970s, when Richard Nixon was retreating from the quagmire in Vietnam.

In per capita terms, real spending will drop by nearly 5% from $11,450 per person in 2009 to $10,900 in 2013 (measured in 2009 dollars).

By the way, real government spending rose 12.3% a year in Hoover’s four years. Now there was a guy who knew how to attack a depression by spending government money!

Got that?

"After adjusting for inflation, spending under Obama is falling at a 1.4% annual pace — the first decline in real spending since the early 1970s ..."

"In per capita terms, real spending will drop by nearly 5% from $11,450 per person in 2009 to $10,900 in 2013 (measured in 2009 dollars)."

- - -

BTW, if any of you want to contest that, you'll need to show us figures and sources that support your contention.

[Fusion_power]

And where do you think that inflation came from Cheesehead? And just how much did the money supply grow under Obama? And how much loss of value for that hard earned money will we suffer over the next 10 years because of the increase in money supply?

Your post is a single facet of a many faceted issue. He may not have increased spending in a major way, but he did print boat loads of new money that made my dollars worth less and less as time goes on.

I also find it interesting that you credit Obama with the reduced spending, yet from your own post we see this.

By no means did Obama try to reverse that spending. Indeed, his budget proposals called for even more spending in subsequent years. But the Congress (mostly Republicans but many Democrats, too) stopped him.

We can see that it wasn't because Obama was fiscally conservative, rather it was because congress didn't let him spend excessively.

DarJones

[ewmayer]

Originally Posted by cheesehead

Talk about cherry-picking the data to put lipstick on that pig... so let's see if I have this straight:

Spending rocketed way, way above already-dire levels (relative to receipts) in W. Bush's last year due to massive government propping of financial markets. Despite that allegedly being a short-term "desperate measures" record budget, it is supposedly to Obama's credit that he didn't go even further into deficit-spending outer space, rather such bloated, over-40%-deficit-financed budgets are now merely "the new normal", which somehow makes Obama a paragon of frugality.

Hyperpartisanship is blinding whichever side it's on, Cheesehead.

Just because Obama (with approval from congress, both overt and covert) has been spending like the proverbial drunken sailor for the entirety of his now-nearly-complete 4-year term does not make him less of a drunk than W. Bush. To extend the metaphor a bit, Bush may have dragged Obama into that portside bar and stood him the first few rounds, but Bush got himself ejected around midnight, and now it's 4 a.m. and the party is going as strong as ever, with Obama running the tab and buying the rounds. "But to his credit, the place hasn't been burnt to the waterline".

-----------------------------------

Newly-elected French president Hollande is doing precisely what I hoped he would when I was rooting for him to win, namely play the other-people`s-money-free-spending socialist buffoon to the hilt, thus hastening the (needed) dissolution of the EMU. This is from the German Die Welt today, translation mine (non-German readers can feed the link to Google Translate for a reasonably-decipherable software translation):

Hollande brings the foundation of Europe into tottering: The French President dreams of reclining in a hammock made of German tax money. The Chancellor must not give in to the Euro-bonds. At stake is more than the taxpayers' money.


(p.s.: You ribald-wordplay-loving English types will have a field day with the German word for "tottering". Thankfully, this commentator is above such sophomoric silliness, except by way of pointing out the rich possibilities here.)

-----------------------------------

A ZH reader posted the following interesting data o Facebook user trends - which I have not seen independent confirmation of, except for the (obvious-by-following-link) Google-hits data:

Facebook has clearly plateaued and is in decline among users. Their bounce rate, which is the estimated percentage of visits that have a single page view, has increased dramatically from 12% in Jan. 2011 to 26.4% currently. FB's Time on Site stats have gone from 32 minutes per day (12/2011) each user to 24 minutes per day. People are spending less time on FB. Their ad click-thru rate is half the industry average at a paltry 0.051% of active users. Google Trends also shows a flattening in the curve of searches for Facebook. http://www.google.com/trends/?q=facebook

On a humorous note, I think I found the master site where all the ZH goldbugs-slash-wannabe-cave-dwelling-survivalists get their playbook from. Instead of simply naming it, allow me to instead link to a different site which paints an amusing portrait of the ZH-survivalist-belowed master site by commenting on the master site's sponsors, such as this one:

Midas Resources

Of course all good survivalists want to ensure they are well invested come the inevitable collapse of paper money and civilization as a whole. Paper money will be of little use when we're all hiding in caves, engaged in guerrilla war against the government, NATO and UN invasion forces. Gold on the other hand will be very useful because… well, it's not really clear how it's useful or even practical to carry heavy gold coins while running from FEMA death squads and their robotic hounds.

[Prime95]

Originally Posted by cheesehead

BTW, if any of you want to contest that, you'll need to show us figures and sources that support your contention.

That's the most contorted and blatant spin job I've seen in quite a while.

Since you like numbers, I'll use your own data to back up Ernst's remarks.

Take the first spreadsheet at http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/Historicals
Now create a new column that averages the 4 years of Federal spending during a presidential term. Compare that average to the average 4 years prior. I'll save you the trouble:

Obama's 2009-2012 average budget is 32.6% above
Bush 2's 2005-2008 average budget which was 30.2% above
Bush 2's 2001-2004 average budget which was 23.5% above
Clinton's 1997-2000 average budget which was 13.4% above
Clinton's 1993-1996 average budget which was 16.6% above
Bush 1's 1989-1992 average budget which was 27.4% above
Reagan's 1985-1988 average budget which was 29.9% above
Reagan's 1981-1984 average budget which was 57.1% above
Carter's 1977-1980 average budget.

Obama's first term has overseen the biggest increase in spending since Reagan in 1981-1984. Note the above figures are not adjusted for inflation. Obama has enjoyed a rather than benign inflation rate. Reagan's first term had some rather horrid inflation. It may turn out that adjusted for inflation Obama may be the worst President we've had with regards to holding the line on spending.

Care to rethink your "Obama the frugal" label and denounce the Democratic "counterfactual propaganda"?

[cheesehead]

Originally Posted by Fusion_power

And just how much did the money supply grow under Obama?

You tell us.

And how much loss of value for that hard earned money will we suffer over the next 10 years because of the increase in money supply?

A lot less than we suffered over the 10 years following some earlier administrations.

Your post is a single facet of a many faceted issue.

... and I never pretended that it covered any other facets. Republicans don't show discomfort about misrepresenting the amounts by which spending has increased during the Obama administration while omitting all the other factors to which you refer.

He may not have increased spending in a major way, but he did print boat loads of new money that made my dollars worth less and less as time goes on.

Figures and sources, please.

I also find it interesting that you credit Obama with the reduced spending

I've never credited Obama with reduced spending. (You show us no quote from any post of mine to support your contention, do you?) What I just posted is that the spending under Obama has increased at a lower rate than during most previous recent administrations. That's a fact.

, yet from your own post we see this.

Yes, so what?

I never claimed that Obama's personal reluctance was the motive. I'm just posting a fact that contradicts what much Republican rhetoric claims.

We can see that it wasn't because Obama was fiscally conservative, rather it was because congress didn't let him spend excessively.

... and I never pretended otherwise. I wrote of results, not intentions or motives.

[cheesehead]

Originally Posted by ewmayer

Hyperpartisanship is blinding whichever side it's on, Cheesehead.

So is your rhetoric.

You seem quite comfortable with implying that I agree with statements you provide that I never uttered or approved of. Why?

Care to confine yourself to honesty about what I post, instead of dragging in all sorts of things in a manner that suggests attribution to me of stuff I never wrote or posted?

[cheesehead]

Originally Posted by Prime95

Care to rethink your "Obama the frugal" label

You also accuse me of something I never did.

Care to apologize for attributing "your "Obama the frugal" label" to me even though I never wrote any such label?

That would show that you care about factual honesty more than about smearing me.

Obama's 2009-2012 average budget is 32.6% above
Bush 2's 2005-2008 average budget which was 30.2% above
Bush 2's 2001-2004 average budget which was 23.5% above
Clinton's 1997-2000 average budget which was 13.4% above
Clinton's 1993-1996 average budget which was 16.6% above
Bush 1's 1989-1992 average budget which was 27.4% above
Reagan's 1985-1988 average budget which was 29.9% above
Reagan's 1981-1984 average budget which was 57.1% above
Carter's 1977-1980 average budget.

Either you didn't bother reading the article, or you just don't understand what Nutter meant when he wrote:

It’s in part because of a fundamental misunderstanding of the federal budget.

What people forget (or never knew) is that the first year of every presidential term starts with a budget approved by the previous administration and Congress. The president only begins to shape the budget in his second year. It takes time to develop a budget and steer it through Congress — especially in these days of congressional gridlock.

The 2009 fiscal year, which Republicans count as part of Obama’s legacy, began four months before Obama moved into the White House. The major spending decisions in the 2009 fiscal year were made by George W. Bush and the previous Congress.

Care to retract your misleading inclusion of the 2009 fiscal year in Obama's term, or the 2001 fiscal year in the Bush term, or the 1993 fiscal year in Clinton's term, or 1981 in Reagan's term?

If you leave those as you've listed them, you're just demonstrating ignorance of what Nutting wrote (and I have posted here, though not recently) about the first fiscal year of a presidential term.

[cheesehead]

Originally Posted by Fusion_power

George, cheeseSpin didn't check the figures,

Either tell us just what figures I didn't check, or make a retraction and apologize to me.

The retraction-and-apology line starts right below here.

[Prime95]

Originally Posted by cheesehead

Care to retract your misleading inclusion of the 2009 fiscal year in Obama's term.

No. One of Obama's first actions was to push for an $800 billion pork-ladden "stimulus" bill. Some of that was spent in FY 2009. Attributing that extra spending to Bush because the FY 2009 budget was proposed by his administration is grossly misleading.

Just to amuse you, we'll remove the first year of a President's term from the spreadsheet calculations. We are now comparing only those budgets that each President had complete control over -- even you should agree that we now have the basis for a fair comparison:

Obama's 2010-2012 average budget is 29.7% above
Bush 2's 2006-2008 average budget which was 29.4% above
Bush 2's 2002-2004 average budget which was 25.7% above
Clinton's 1998-2000 average budget which was 13.3% above
Clinton's 1994-1996 average budget which was 14.6% above
Bush 1's 1990-1992 average budget which was 29.4% above
Reagan's 1986-1988 average budget which was 27.1% above
Reagan's 1982-1984 average budget which was 54.8% above
Carter's 1978-1980 average budget.

So there you have it. Cold hard facts. Obama has overseen the biggest expansion of Federal spending since Reagan. Do you still want to believe the Democratic propaganda?

[cheesehead]

George,

Where's your apology and retraction for your false assignation to me of

Originally Posted by Prime95

your "Obama the frugal" label

?

Either show us just where I have used that label, or retract your attribution and apologize.

- - -

Originally Posted by Prime95

No. One of Obama's first actions was to push for an $800 billion pork-ladden "stimulus" bill. Some of that was spent in FY 2009. Attributing that extra spending to Bush because the FY 2009 budget was proposed by his administration is grossly misleading.

I don't mind if you affix an asterisk to fiscal year 2009 -- as you properly credit that one mainly to Bush (which, I see, you don't yet). The early stimulus bill was indeed an exception. It's quite rare for an incoming president to get something passed that so significantly affects the spending total for the fiscal year in which he enters office. So, go ahead and allocate that exception to Obama, but credit the year to Bush otherwise.

Just to amuse you, we'll remove the first year of a President's term from the spreadsheet calculations.

No, that's amusing yourself. I didn't say remove it. I said allocate it properly to the preceding president.

Again, you're dishonest, in implying that removal of those years amuses me. That's for your amusement, not mine.

We are now comparing only those budgets that each President had complete control over -- even you should agree that we now have the basis for a fair comparison:

No, I don't agree, because you still don't get it -- fiscal 2009 was primarily Bush's responsibility, just as fiscal 2001 was primarily Clinton's responsibility. Simply discarding those years doesn't make your figures honest.

Obama's 2010-2012 average budget is 29.7% above
Bush 2's 2006-2008 average budget which was 29.4% above
Bush 2's 2002-2004 average budget which was 25.7% above
Clinton's 1998-2000 average budget which was 13.3% above
Clinton's 1994-1996 average budget which was 14.6% above
Bush 1's 1990-1992 average budget which was 29.4% above
Reagan's 1986-1988 average budget which was 27.1% above
Reagan's 1982-1984 average budget which was 54.8% above
Carter's 1978-1980 average budget.

So there you have it. Cold hard facts.

Biased, incomplete, and therefore misleading cold hard facts.

Where are 2009, 2005 (you can't say that's not Bush's), 2001, 1997 (unquestionably Clinton's), 1993, 1989, 1985 (to whom do you propose to assign 1985 after you've removed it from Reagan's responsibility?), and 1981?

(BTW, this list is still misleading for another reason, which I'll explain once you've cleared up the fiscal year 4N+1 issue.)

Obama has overseen the biggest expansion of Federal spending since Reagan.

By "overseen", you apparently mean that he was in office during the end of fiscal year 2009. But with the exception noted above, he was responsible for very little of it. If you disagree, explain how Obama was responsible for spending that began on October 1, 2008 (before Obama was even elected!). Explain what input he had into the congressional deliberations about bills that were brought to the floors of House and Senate during the summer of 2008.

What Nutting explained wasn't Democratic propaganda. It was what the Wall Street Journal has explained many times to its readers (some of whom also still didn't get it). Try facing the facts of fiscal accounting and legislative timing instead of dreaming those Republican-propaganda dreams.

[Prime95]

Originally Posted by cheesehead

Where's your apology...

One won't be heading your way.


You have your blinders on. Big time. It is pointless arguing with you. The truth is Obama is a big spender, just like Reagan, Bush 1, and Bush 2. Only Clinton gets a good fiscal grade.

Obama may get my vote this November, but he certainly hasn't earned it. Thusfar, I'd rate his Presidency a colossal disappointment. Record deficits, continued Wall St. bailout, no prosecutions of the culprits, no meaningful reform. The only reason to vote for his re-election, as you have pointed out ad-nausem, is that there is no reason to believe the Republicans will do any better in the next four years.