Obama has greatest fiscal restraint of any President Ever- Facebook

[Ned Hamford]

Article from Forbes that is making the liberal facebook rounds. 
http://www.forbes.com/sites/rickungar/2012/05/24/who-is-the-smallest-government-spender-since-eisenhower-would-you-believe-its-barack-obama/2/

They even link a rebuttal from Heritage to mock, I think confident that their base readers never do followup.
http://blog.heritage.org/2012/05/24/setting-obamas-great-fiscal-restraint-record-straight/

I just post that it would be nice to use the same metrics for both democrats and republicans.  That will happen any day right?    

[makattak]

I always love articles like this:

If we just ignore the MASSIVE SPENDING from his first year, he's only spent a little bit more than that massive increase from his first year in the succeeding years! He's a model of fiscal restraint!

[Scout26]

Just goes to show that you can massage the numbers to prove anything.


Obama, the fiscal restrainer....HA!

[TommyGunn]

Obama has greatest fiscal restraint of any President Ever.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 


That's all.  Nothing more to see; move along....................

[AJ Dual]

Oh.. forget all the fantasy about shoring up the 2nd Amendment... If I had a time-machine, I'd go visit the founders, use my Android phone to prove I was from the future, (while the battery lasted) and then I'd convince them to insert something about prohibiting any sort of "baseline budgeting" from any aspect of .gov.

[makattak]

Oh.. forget all the fantasy about shoring up the 2nd Amendment... If I had a time-machine, I'd go visit the founders, use my Android phone to prove I was from the future, (while the battery lasted) and then I'd convince them to insert something about prohibiting any sort of "baseline budgeting" from any aspect of .gov.

FDR would have destroyed it in the thirties, anyway.

[Monkeyleg]

I'm surprised this ever made it to Forbes magazine after the outcry from conservatives over the methodology: put nearly all of Obama's first-year spending into GW's last year.

[MicroBalrog]

Have these people.... read their own article before they hit Send?

[Buzzcook]

Heck I see the limited spending as an indictment of Obama. We need more stimulus not less. The deficit isn't as important as jobs.

With the price of borrowing for the federal government being close to 0% it makes sense invest in infrastructure, funding shortfalls in state government, and increasing the social safety net.

Austerity hasn't done anything for Europe and it hasn't done anything for the US.

If we want to get out of this depression we should emulate Reagan and increased spending and taxes.

BTW I didn't think the Heritage article did much to refute the claims made by this.
http://articles.marketwatch.com/2012-05-22/commentary/31802270_1_spending-federal-budget-drunken-sailor

[Monkeyleg]

Buzzcook, are you being facetious?

[MicroBalrog]

Europe's austerity is a fake.

It hasn't done much for Europe because it hasn't existed.

[TommyGunn]

Heck I see the limited spending as an indictment of Obama. We need more stimulus not less. The deficit isn't as important as jobs.

With the price of borrowing for the federal government being close to 0% it makes sense invest in infrastructure, funding shortfalls in state government, and increasing the social safety net.

Austerity hasn't done anything for Europe and it hasn't done anything for the US.

If we want to get out of this depression we should emulate Reagan and increased spending and taxes.

BTW I didn't think the Heritage article did much to refute the claims made by this.
http://articles.marketwatch.com/2012-05-22/commentary/31802270_1_spending-federal-budget-drunken-sailor

Reagan cut taxes. He also decreased the rate of growth of the government. 
No country has ever taxed & spent itself into prosperity.  
FDR tried to tax & spend our way out of the Great Depression and it didn't work for him and it won't work for us today.

[makattak]

Europe's austerity is a fake.

It hasn't done much for Europe because it hasn't existed.

And Micro beat me to it.

Although that is not completely true. SOME of Europe actually implemented austerity measures. For example, Estonia, which had ACTUAL austerity, is now growing at 7.6%.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/47691090

What is the US growth rate again? Oh, right, less than 2% (I'm betting on not even breaking 1.5% this year.)

Good thing we dodged that "austerity" bullet. 

[ronnyreagan]

If we just ignore the MASSIVE SPENDING from his first year, he's only spent a little bit more than that massive increase from his first year in the succeeding years! He's a model of fiscal restraint!

So what part of this don't you agree with?

not only was the 2009 budget the property of George W. Bush—and passed by the 2008 Congress—it was in effect four months before Barack Obama took the oath of office.

I'm surprised this ever made it to Forbes magazine after the outcry from conservatives over the methodology: put nearly all of Obama's first-year spending into GW's last year.

Why not? If you use that methodology consistently it makes a fair comparison of how much presidents increased spending. They correctly attributed the 2009 the stimulus bill to him because he was in office by that point. How would it make sense to claim he's responsible for increases that took place before he took office?

[makattak]

So what part of this don't you agree with?Why not? If you use that methodology consistently it makes a fair comparison of how much presidents increased spending. They correctly attributed the 2009 the stimulus bill to him because he was in office by that point. How would it make sense to claim he's responsible for increases that took place before he took office?

Yes. I have a problem with blaming all of 2009 on Bush. Who signed the 2009 budget?

(Here's a hint: http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2009/03/11/Obama-signs-earmark-laden-budget-bill/UPI-75101236770890/)

[Monkeyleg]

Ronnyreagan, when Bush left office, the stimulus plan was just a thin outline. It wasn't until the latter half of the year when the plan had ballooned into the $800+ billion monster that Obama signed (after personally lobbying for it).

This isn't like any regular appropriations bill that was introduced during the tenure of one president, then signed by the next.

Obama's crew also puts the debt for the various business loans into GW's debt column, but conveniently uses the repayment of those loans a couple of years later to reduce his own deficits.

[Perd Hapley]

Yes. I have a problem with blaming all of 2009 on Bush. Who signed the 2009 budget?

(Here's a hint: http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2009/03/11/Obama-signs-earmark-laden-budget-bill/UPI-75101236770890/)

Here's another, just because.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29632177/ns/politics-white_house/t/obama-signs-massive-imperfect-spending-bill/#.T9_0TvXp_9Z

[makattak]

That's really all the argument I need.

Obama is responsible for his spending. Let's stipulate that 2009 was an unfair year to judge since Obama oversaw only .75 of that year.

So let's compare his first full year (2010) to Bush's last full year (2008). That would be apples to apples, right?

[MicroBalrog]

I have questions.

Why are we saying "since Eisenhower?" Has American history started with Eisenhower?

Why do they discuss only growth rates of Federal spending? According to their page, Obama spent only 1.4 more than Bush, who in turn spent spent more than Clinton, and so on - making him the largest spender since Eisenhower, not the smallest.

[Fitz]

I have questions.

Why are we saying "since Eisenhower?" Has American history started with Eisenhower?

Why do they discuss only growth rates of Federal spending? According to their page, Obama spent only 1.4 more than Bush, who in turn spent spent more than Clinton, and so on - making him the largest spender since Eisenhower, not the smallest.

Because they've been using funny math and "baseline budgeting" to pull the wool over the eyes of Americans bad at math for decades

[DittoHead]

I have questions.

Why are we saying "since Eisenhower?" Has American history started with Eisenhower?

Why do they discuss only growth rates of Federal spending? According to their page, Obama spent only 1.4 more than Bush, who in turn spent spent more than Clinton, and so on - making him the largest spender since Eisenhower, not the smallest.

Because if you frame it that way then it's harder for republicans to complain, as they increased spending too. They just (hopefully?) increased it less.

[longeyes]

Europe's austerity is a fake.

It hasn't done much for Europe because it hasn't existed.

Austerity is a boojum, a cryptid.