Let’s keep it simple. The above chart is simply annual federal spending, adjusted for inflation, based on info from the White House Office of Management and Budget. I give credit (or blame) for the first year of spending in a presidential term to the previous term. I also shift $140 billion of 2009 stimulus spending from George W. Bush to Barack Obama, placing it in 2010, just like that now-infamous MarketWatch analysis. (If possible, I would have liked to have made some adjustment that reflected the role of a Democrat-controlled Congress in boosting spending from 2007-2010 and a GOP-controlled House in limiting it starting in 2011.)
What the chart shows, I think, is this: Obama took advantage of a big surge in spending in 2009 and made it a permanent spending floor rather than a ceiling. Notice, in 2017—eight years after the official end of the Great Recession—spending continues to be elevated.
Here is another way of looking at it:
And as I noted the other day:
Until Barack Obama took office in 2009, the United States had never spent more than 23.5% of GDP, with the exception of the World War II years of 1942-1946. Here’s the Obama spending record:
– 25.2% of GDP in 2009
– 24.1% of GDP in 2010
– 24.1% of GDP in 2011
– 24.3% (estimates by the White House ) in 2012
What’s more, if Obama wins another term, spending—according to his own budget—would never drop below 22.3% of GDP. If that forecast is right, spending during Obama’s eight years in office would average 23.6% of GDP. That’s higher than any single previous non-war year.
It would be interesting to see the comparison of this graph against The FALGAFT Plan Economic Platform for Government Spending. My bet is the result is UNDER $3,000
Hold on. Looking at the top table to begin with, we see Bush’s second term, in which spending (adjusted as you say) climbs from $2.5T to $3.0T – an overall increase in outlays of about 25%. Taking from where Bush left off at $3.0T to the projected end – in eight years – it will be sitting at $3.5T for Obama, or an overall increase in eight years of 17%. I’m confused? Your data, I’m just looking at the bars. To further my question, 17% over the eight full years you project puts the average annual increase at about 2.125%, correct? Bush’s, in the five years you give (which is a bit hypocritical) still works out to smooth 5% per year. How is there now suddenly a spending explosion when the data you present suggests otherwise? As for my hypocritical declaration, I believe if you go back to Bush’s first year, of eight, and even it out with Obama’s eight you use here, he started at about $2T in spending, and ended at the $3.0T you have listed here – a 50% increase over 8 years, which works out to better than 6% per year. Again, your graph, and it’s pretty easy to see that your text doesn’t match what you presented. Yes, spending has increased, as it has from year-to-year for about forever. But, to imply, through this chart, that his ‘explosion’ happened doesn’t make sense.
As for the second chart, looks about right, but not wholly representative because even though you’ve adjusted for constant dollars, it doesn’t tell the whole story. Spending by Clinton during his last term totalled just over $8T – and that is the true baseline for the follow-on Adminstration. Bush’s first term (the increase from that $8T) ended with a total of $9.35T and marks an increase of about 16.1%; his presidency, all eight years, moved the number from the $8.0T to his final number of $10.8T – an overall increase of 34%. Obama’s first term, facts you give us, went from that $10.8T to $12.7T, an increase of a bit more than Bush at 17%. Using your first chart, Obama’s ’14-’18 number will be $13.3T, measured against his baseline of $10.8T is an eight-year increase of about 23% – which is a fully two-digits lower than the increases under Bush.
Where is the explosion? I question you not presenting the full Bush term in the top table and not relating any of the numbers to a percentage – which is the only way to measure anything. I also question the second chart which doesn’t take the numbers you swear by in the top chart for Obama’s ’14-’18 budgets, and measure it against the Bush years you present. It’s a bit sloppy – all I’ve done is refrain from offering anything aside from what you’ve presented – and what you’ve pulled from your numbers is wrong, mathematically.
So, let’s say Bush’s first term spending increase was 16.1% and Obama’s was 17%. Bush wins that one, by a bit. I’d say there were some extenuating circumstances when measuring between the economy that Bush inherited and the economy Obama inherited. Over eight years, by your numbers, Bush increased spending by 34% and you are projecting Obama to have increased it by 23%.
I understand that increasing spending is alway an issue, and we need to get it under control. But to imply, with your numbers and charts, that Obama spends more than Bush – increases measured against increases – is not true.