How much is Obama spending?

[SSB]

I was talking to a friend the other day that was absolutely blasting Obama's spending. Now my friend is a devoted Fox guy, loves Rush, you know the type. Anyway I decided to take a look at the actual numbers to see for myself. (You can download the historical revenue/outlays worksheet from the department of treasury)

I compared every president back to Ford. But first let me clarify, an incoming president inherits the final 9 months of the outgoing presidents budget since we have a Oct 1 thru Sept 30 budget year. For example, Carter submitted the 1981 budget in 1980, it went through the approval process and went into effect on Oct 1, 1980, a month before Reagan was elected. That was 90 days before he took office. That budget included a 15% increase over the 1980 budget. I don't believe it is fair to stick Reagan with Carter's 15% increase. So for the purpose of my comparison I am looking at who signed budget into law. In Carter's case, he signed the 78, 79, 80, and 81 budgets into law.

Then I looked at the average percent of increase over their presidency.

This is what I found:

President Average increase per year

Ford 15%
Carter 13%
Reagan 7%
Bush (HW) 5%
Clinton 4%
Bush (W) 8%
Obama 0%

In fact Obama is the first president (going back to Ford) that ever had a year of negative growth. 2010, 2012, and 2013 all had negative 2% growth.

The controversy is that I included the 2009 budget year (the last one W signed) under Bush. With the bank bailout falling in fiscal Q1 2009 (calendar Q4 2008) that is the only fair way to do it. Im sure the boys over at Fox would take issue with that.

I also found this interesting:

If the economic fiasco of 2009 had never happened and we simply grew government spending a the Clinton like rate of 4% annually. Taking the 2008 annual spend of 2.982 trillion, today we would be spending 3.773 trillion. If we increased spending at the rate W was (7% annually prior to 09) we would be spending 4.475 trillion. In reality Obama spent 3.506 trillion last year. That is less then was spent in 09, 5 years ago.

I am sure people will argue that ACA and other programs will increase spending in the future, that is fair commentary. But as of now, Obama has grown government less then any other president (going back as far as Ford).

 

[mjvcaj]

To me, its about failed spending prioritization

As Rock and I have agreed on for years on this board, infrastructure investment is not top of mind. Granted, the Pubs have done plenty of things to block infrastructure spending, but IMO a simple reallocation of $N from X, Y and Z budgets towards infrastructure would have been a no-brainer.

If Washington wasn't so incompetent, it should have been able to craft this without attaching it to other legislation or including any pork barrel bullshit (pardon my language). A proposal like this would have been suicidal for the Pubs to oppose and would have gone a long way towards generating some positive light for the Administration.

Originally, I was a big supporter of high speed rail because of its impact on travel options and thus, prices. I also felt it would provide increased longevity to stretches of road that are constantly in need of repair (e.g. Minneapolis to Chicago along I-94 and I-90). However, given the slow progress in the construction of these networks and lack of clarity regarding pricing, I'm not so sure this was a good idea to back.

 

[SSB]

I don't disagree with that.

How money is spent is as important as how much. But I still found the numbers surprising.

 

[Aloha Hoosier]

Everyone gets this wrong. Obama isn't really spending anything.

The Executive branch can only spend the money authorized by Congress. If there is any increase or decrease in spending the blame or credit (depending on your point of view) belongs to Congress, not the President.

 

[SSB]

Kinda, sorta true.

But don't tell the Dems that when a Pub is in the oval office and don't tell the Pubs that when a Dem is. And lets face it, Reagan put his political ass out there to get the tax reductions. But outside of stating that congress needed to reduce spending he didn't waste much political capital in pursuing it.

Presidents have a lot of power if they want to use it.

 

[mjvcaj]

So, if you are agreeing with him

Shouldn't the premise of your original post be based more upon control of Congress vs. Executive power? If Obama maintained a Democratic Congress, do you think spending would still be on this trajectory?

 

[SSB]

Good question, the first budget Obama submitted would have been

to the 111th congress and the Dems had control of both houses. The 112th and 113th congresses were split. So the 114th will be the first during the Obama presidency where the Republicans have control of both houses. It will be interesting to see how the 2015 budget turns out (approved by 113th). And then where the 2016 and later Obama budgets go considering Republican control of both houses.

Ironically, you can't do much better then 0% growth.

This post was edited on 4/6 3:10 PM by SSB

 

[NPT]

I still don't get why

you want to assign the stimulus bill which was signed in February 2009 by Obama to Bush. Obama could have vetoed it if he thought the spending was too much so to me if he signed it he gets the credit or blame .... whatever the case may be.

 

[SSB]

I'm sure every president could make a similar case.

It is hard to reconcile. The bank bailout took place during the 09 budget year, but it was before Obama took office. So the question is; what portion of the 2009 budget, that was singed by Bush and included the bailout that was enacted while Bush was president goes to Bush, and what portion goes to Obama?

Or we can go the lazy way and just apply budget years by who signed them into law.

 

[Aloha Hoosier]

It's actually nearly 100 percent true.

The President can influence and submit his preferred plan but Congress passes all the appropriations and authorizations. The President can veto them if he wants and Congress can either modify or override. The bottom-line is that the President can't spend any money that wasn't authorized and appropriated by Congress. Congress deserves overwhelming majority of the credit or the blame for the levels of spending and the levels of deficits and debt - economic cycles have a great deal to do with this too.

 

[Aloha Hoosier]

Obama's budgets have either been rejected explicitly . . .

as most were voted down nearly unanimously or with overwhelming majorities (including all or most Democrats) of the House and/or Senate, or implicitly, as when Harry Reid wouldn't even allow votes on them. Besides, budgets aren't even binding. The appropriations and authorization bills often differ from what was proposed in the budget resolutions - and they're binding.

 

[Aloha Hoosier]

As were all but one or two of the FY09 appropriation bills.

Most of which were passed by Democratic majorities in January of 2009 after the elections of 2008.

 

[mjvcaj]

Would you give credit to Bush then for the bank bailouts?

The country actually made its money back with interest from TARP. Meanwhile, the auto bailout left us $12 billion in the hole.

 

[SSB]

All I know Aloha is that

Republicans by and large blame Obama for spending. You see it on this board, you see it on Fox news, and you here it in everyday conversation. Do the two houses have a lot to do with it? Hell yeah, but the president submits the budget, he can veto it and signs he it into law. And if he wants he can spend his political capital attempting to force cuts.

 

[Ladoga]

I don't get why

the national debt has increase from 10.1 trillion in October 2008 - yes 3 months before Obama took office - to 18.1 trillion this past January IF the government hadn't increased spending.

He promised to cut the deficit.

No, he promised. The national debt is the result of adding up all the deficits and all the surpluses since the founding of the nation.

When Obama took office it was just over 10 trillion. Now its 18.1 trillion. How did that happen in just over 6 years if spending didn't increase?

 

[TheOriginalHappyGoat]

Also.

Appropriations don't represent a spending cap, but an actual mandate. The President is required to spend appropriated moneys. He can't single-handedly reduce spending.

goat

 

[SSB]

How would you do it?

I know for some of the guys around here it is as simple as Bush good, Obama bad.

But for the smart people, how do you do it? Sure I'll give Bush credit for the bank bailout, I'm one of the people who supported him doing it, and I'm glad it worked out as well as it did.

But when you are analyzing annual spending for a country that has a Oct-Sept fiscal year how do you want to do it? Seems like budget years is a pretty good idea, not perfect but at least you can do it.

This is actually fairly simple. If you used the 2008 budget year (Oct 1, 2007 - Sept 30, 2008) as a starting point and you used the lowest rate of growth of any president since Ford (Clinton - 4%) we would have spent 3.77 trillion in 2015. We spent 3.5 trillion.

I understand that there is a narrative that people want or need to believe. So the argument begins, it wasn't really Obama, or any other argument they can think of to complicate the basic facts.

All I want to do is give the knuckleheads that think Obama spent us into the poorhouse a little something to think about. And when on the attack the "it's Obama's fault" doesn't get diluted down with, "well actually the two houses of congress are the ones to blame".

 

[TheOriginalHappyGoat]

Come on, you're smarter than that.

The deficit is the annual shortfall between expenses and revenues. A year-to-year decrease in the deficit does not see a reduction in debt. Instead, it results in slower growth of the debt than we'd otherwise see. If the budget is balanced, then the debt stops growing. If the deficit is turned into a surplus, then the debt is reduced.

The deficit has been steadily declining since 2009. However, it's been steadily declining from a very large number, and so the debt has continued to grow.

 

[SSB]

The way it works is

receipts minus outlays equal the surplus or deficit. So if spending stays relatively flat (3.5 trillion in 2009 and 3.5 trillion in 2015) then I'm guessing that revenue has a lot to do with debt generation.

 

[Aloha Hoosier]

We haven't passed a budget for many years.

It's darn near criminal in my opinion.

 

[NPT]

I just don't buy your arguement

What you're saying is that if I, as an individual, have an annual budget(the amount I spend) of $100,000 then one year I decide to buy a $50,000 car and pay cash then my annual budget is now $150,000. Well, it was for that one year but that doesn't mean that's the yardstick to measure by. For example, if I had been saving $10,000 the previous 5 years because I knew I was gonna by a new car in 5 years a fair way to do it would be to add $10,000 to my previous annual budget making it $110,000 and then compare to that.

 

[SSB]

I don't get it. Are you saying government, our government,

saved money to apply toward something? Im fairly sure the size of our debt is proof we didn't save much. I know you have a point Im just not getting it.

 

[SSB]

You are preaching to the choir now.

We spend too much money, I get it. It isn't just the president that gets the blame/credit, I get that too.

But we spent 3.5 trillion in 2009 and in 2014 we spent 3.5 trillion. All I am saying is that the Fox/Rush crowd are misrepresenting the facts.

Is this worth arguing over?

 

[CO. Hoosier]

This is old debunked news

Did you find a 6 year-old left wing blog post or something?

Your theory of not including the fiscal year in which Obama began his first term has been offered and debunked before. This calculation removes the '09 stimulus from Obama's figures as well as the 09 omnibus spending bill. The democratic congress did not pass a lot of spending in 08 in anticipation of Obama winning the election, so the budget picture at Obama's inauguration was a little off. That said, the democratic congress passed spending for 09 and Obama signed it and that spending was 11 billion over the baseline. That would never have gotten by Bush. So the bottom line is that you are ignoring about $1 trillion that Pelosi and Obama are specifically responsible for. So yeah, your 0% is easy to imagine given your misleading beginning point.

Oh, and don't forget the massive unfunded liability within the ACA. That isn't counted either. And don't forget Obama's classy rebuke of Ryan's attempts to cut the unfunded liability in Medicare; that is on Obama too.














This post was edited on 4/6 7:59 PM by CO. Hoosier

 

[IU3]

Huh?

Good liberal bs so how is it that' we are 18 trillion in the hole? Bush spent like an idiot but not 18 trillion. Obama spends every penny buying votes like the bailouts

 

[CO. Hoosier]

Reagan did not reduce taxes

He proposed and congress passed tax rate reductions. Tax reveue never fell and was never reduced. In fact Reagan presided over a very large tax restructuring that resulted in significant tax increases for investors. He ended the passive loss offset against ordinary income. This killed the tax advantages of thousands of limited partnerships.

 

[NPT]

No I'm not saying that.

All I was trying to get across is that the stimulus was a one time thing that should have made the budget jump one year (could have been spread across 2 years) but the budget made a big jump because of the stimulus and never dropped back to it's previous rate of growth.

 

[CO. Hoosier]

Infrastructure spending isn't all it's cracked up to be

and consistent firm GOP opposition to infrastructure spending is a myth.

In most cases Infrastructure spending does nothing permanent to the economy. These are simply public works construction projects that proceed all the time. They don't create wealth, but instead take wealth out circulation to build depreciating assets. Some of those assets turn out to be white elephants and costs outweigh the benefits. There are billions in earmarks that attest to this. Most high speed rail I think would also be a waste of money. Other public works projects actually increase wealth by increasing the value of goods the projects bring to market; like Keystone*. Water projects are another with good ROI, but the environmentalists have shut down most all of those. Most public works spending is just spending with little or no long term wealth creation. Better would be to use our private wealth to create a growing and thriving economy, and THEN with the increased revenue do the infrastructure investments. BTW, nobody is suggesting that we ignore infrastructure all together, There are significant safety improvements and modernizations that can, should, and do take place in a bipartisan fashion.

*Obama's belief that Keystone is nothing but a conduit of oil from Canada to China is stupid and wrong.

 

[mjvcaj]

This is just wrong

The majority of assets are depreciating in nature, particularly when thinking about Capex. Proper infrastructure investment should have a multiplier effect on the economy. The obvious ones are roads and bridges.

But, what about ports? Why wouldn't you want to invest a considerable amount into new ports (can be in conjunction with local and state governments) after the union hostage fiasco that keeps happening out west? Instead of catering to these union complainers, we should be building alternatives to throw up our middle finger next time.

 

[Aloha Hoosier]

Correct.

One of a few reasons that stat almost totally meaningless.

 

[CO. Hoosier]

The multiplier effect is

Certainly not across the board. I agree about ports. As I said water projects and pipelines also have a good ROI because those would improve the distribution of needed resources. Roads and bridges? Not so much. Same for mass transit. But all of this is subject to location.

 

[SSB]

There is nothing to debunk.

Bush averaged a 7% increase in spending per year. If you go back to the 08 budget year, prior to the credit meltdown, we spent 2.982 trillion. If that continued to grow at a 7% rate we would have spent 4.475 trillion in 2014. We spent 3.506 trillion.

Clinton averaged a 4% increase in spending per year. using the same criteria we would have spent 3.773 trillion in 2014.

 

[SSB]

Yes and no.

Spending shot up 18% in 2009. While it did retract a small amount, -2% in 2010, 2012, and 2013, we certainly didn't see it go back to pre-2009 levels. However, we spent 2.982 trillion in fiscal 08, prior to the credit meltdown. Using Bush's average growth rate of 7% we would have spent 4.475 trillion in 2014. We spend 3.506 trillion.

This post was edited on 4/7 11:13 AM by SSB

 

[SSB]

That is incorrect.

Revenue went down 3% in 1983. Furthermore, we had seen double digit revenue growth during the previous decade. After the Economic Recovery Act that slowed to single digit growth. Not that I want to pay higher taxes but lets try to be accurate.

 

[CO. Hoosier]

Agreed lets be accurate and complete

see.

The overall impact of the rate reduction did not adversly affect the revenue stream. The single year blip you mentioned can easily be explained by GDP rate of growth drop and the fall out from that.

 

[SSB]

In the decade prior to the tax cuts

revenue grew 12.4% annually. In the decade after the tax cuts revenue grew 5.9% annually.

 

[NPT]

Looking at it another

way.... If you throw out the 2001 and 2009 (first year of each term) and add Bush's outlays in the remaining 7 years and Obama's outlays in the 5 years then the spending is almost equal, In other words Bush's outlays in 7 years equals Obama's outlays in 5 years. Got my numbers from here.

 

[SSB]

The US government grew spending by 18% in 2009.

Spending has not increased since that time. Rational people will argue over what portion of the 2009 increase belongs to Bush vs Obama. Either way, if 2009 had never happened, and we had simply continued growing the government at the 7% rate, as Bush was doing. Then based on what we spent in 2008 today we would be spending 4.475trillion.

 

[Ladoga]

"Splain if you would,

just how did we get 8 trillion more national debt if spending didn't increase? Was our revenue input to the government 8 trillion less over Obama's term thus far?

Nobody addresses the 80% increase in the national debt - accumulated since first measure in 1784.

It took 225 year to accumulate 10 trillion in national debt and only 6 years to accumulate 8 trillion more.

The Obama mumbo jumbo is actually trying to have folks believe - and some actually do - that they didn't increase spending and that 8 trillion just landed on our backs from some unknown place.

 

[TheOriginalHappyGoat]

Starting in 2009...

our spending was much, much higher than our revenue. That gap has gotten smaller since then, but it hasn't closed. So we've continued to add to the debt each year, although the amount we add to the debt is getting smaller.