Can someone pick this apart? Obama smallest governemnt spender since Ike?

[Nickwanz]

hxxp://www.forbes.com/sites/rickungar/2012/05/24/who-is-the-smallest-government-spender-since-eisenhower-would-you-believe-its-barack-obama/

[LibertyEagle]

Do a search. Someone has already debunked that.

[Keith and stuff]

It is laughable. The short answer is the article title is a lie. The body is about the percentage increase in spending, not about spending or increase in spending. I don't know if the original story was written by a liar or the editor just want to lie to drum up interest.

[headhawg7]

What was the debt when he took office and what is it projected to be when he leaves office?

[matt0611]

It was just liberal propaganda piece that was posted everywhere you looked a few months back. Its a total lie.

It can be debunked in a few seconds, its just talking about percentage INCREASES in spending over the last four years and not total amount spent or total added to debt etc.

Its like if I went on a diet today, yesterday I ate 3000 calories and then today I ate 5000 calories and then after a few months I tell you that I'm only eating 5100 calories per day and I say "Hey, I'm not eating a lot at all. I've only increased it 100 calories over a few months!"

It's a total farce.

[Nickwanz]

Politifact was running the same line as "mostly true" as well. Can someone link me to most 'thorough debunking"

I and others have been arguing that the basic fact is a percentage point does not mean much if you don't know what 'real numbers' are being discussed.

Like someone said "a 1% increase in spending with a baseline of $100 billion is a $1 billion increase. a 1% increase in spending from a $300 billlion budget is $3 billion" and that makes sense to me.

Is that about the jist of the "debunking"?

[Nickwanz]

And when someone says that 81 percent of the budget is mandatory, what do they mean by that?

[headhawg7]

Just look at the debt the first year after his budget(in this case the next fiscal year after inauguration) and the projection for the next fiscal year after he leaves office.

[headhawg7]

And when someone says that 81 percent of the budget is mandatory, what do they mean by that?He is talking about non discretionary spending which includes things like the SS, medicare, etc...It makes up about 67-70% of total govt spending the last I checked.

[Nickwanz]

Thats what I say, but then I hear "only 19 percent of the budget spending is up for debate, so it's not Obama's fault"

[The Free Hornet]

Thats what I say, but then I hear "only 19 percent of the budget spending is up for debate, so it's not Obama's fault"

There cannot possibly be a bigger fucking lie - no offense.

There is no constiutional mandate to pay social security, fund medicare, pay soldiers (no mandate, we can even give IOUs), or just about anything else they do. I understand there are distinctions between yearly and multi-year outlays and programs that are on autopilot. Any congress can grind all of those to a halt.

Pretending their hands are tied is just a convenient dodge.

[headhawg7]

Thats what I say, but then I hear "only 19 percent of the budget spending is up for debate, so it's not Obama's fault"The numbers and % are not static. That is why the author of that article is being intentionally deceiving. Discretionary spending could stay at say 70% of the budget but what if the budget ITSELF goes up in its entirety 200%? SO instead of spending say 3T on discretionary and 1T on non-discretionary spending we spend 6T on discretionary and 2T on non-discretionary the % stays the same but the total amount doubles. This is very much an oversimplification but I think you get the idea.

Using statistics and percentages you can pretty much cherry pick anything to come up with the numbers that best suit your agenda. The best way and the most simple way to do it is look at the national debt as a whole. What was it when he entered office(his first budget) and what is it going to be when he leaves(his last budget)? It is the same argument people made about clinton and the surplus. It was nothing more than cherry picked numbers using calender years instead of fiscal years. If you notice the national debt has never gone down in any fiscal year that he was president.

[UpperDecker]

This makes no sense to me. How can they even mention small government when spending is still increasing? What is there to be proud of here? He is still growing the government.

[UpperDecker]

Politifact was running the same line as "mostly true" as well. Can someone link me to most 'thorough debunking"

I and others have been arguing that the basic fact is a percentage point does not mean much if you don't know what 'real numbers' are being discussed.

Like someone said "a 1% increase in spending with a baseline of $100 billion is a $1 billion increase. a 1% increase in spending from a $300 billlion budget is $3 billion" and that makes sense to me.

Is that about the jist of the "debunking"?

This is how I looked at it. Sure it sounds good when you just look at the percentage, but when you look at the actual amount it is completely different. A slight increase of a massive budget will be greater than a big increase of a small budget, at least in this case.

[Seraphim]

"The tumor in your brain has been growing at annual rate of 2% for the last 10 years - this year, however, the tumor only grew 1%. Your cancer is getting better."

OP is no different then a doctor giving this explanation to a patient.

[TheGrinch]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PY0U_x8PHDg

[Zippyjuan]

Bear in mind that Obama's first real budget was the one for 2010 fiscal year- the 2009 fiscal year began October 2008 and was written by Congress and passed when Bush was still president (it was not signed by Bush though- Obama finished the process). Obama took office in January 2009. The first "Obama budget" was for the 2010 fiscal year which began October, 2009. And even at that, calling it a Bush budget or Obama budget can still be misleading- by Constitution, the President does not write the budget- that is the responsibility of Congress. All revenue and spending laws must originate in the House of Representatives. The president may "suggest" a budget, but the House has to actually write it, then the Senate gets their shot and if the Senate makes changes, it goes back to the House until the two reach agreement. From there, the President can only sign or veto it. He can't change anything.

As the Forbes article points out:

It might have something to do with the first year of the Obama presidency where the federal budget increased a whopping 17.9% —going from $2.98 trillion to $3.52 trillion. I’ll bet you think that this is the result of the Obama sponsored stimulus plan that is so frequently vilified by the conservatives…but you would be wrong.

The first year of any incoming president term is saddled—for better or for worse—with the budget set by the president whom immediately precedes the new occupant of the White House. Indeed, 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.


And really, the reason spending has not changed much is for better or worse due to the severe polarity in Congress. It has prevented action on many issues and that has greatly reduced new programs getting passed and spending increased.

As for the "mandatory vs discressionary spending", here is the 2010 budget (the first one you can credit to Obama).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_United_States_federal_budget


The President's budget request for 2010 totals $3.55 trillion. Percentages in parentheses indicate percentage change compared to 2009. This budget request is broken down by the following expenditures:[9]

Mandatory spending: $2.173 trillion (+14.9%)

$695 billion (+4.9%) – Social Security
$571 billion (+58.6%) – Unemployment/Welfare/Other mandatory spending
$453 billion (+6.6%) – Medicare
$290 billion (+12.0%) – Medicaid
$164 billion (+18.0%) – Interest on National Debt


Discretionary spending: $1.378 trillion (+13.8%)

$663.7 billion (+12.7%) – Department of Defense (including Overseas Contingency Operations)
$78.7 billion (−1.7%) – Department of Health and Human Services
$72.5 billion (+2.8%) – Department of Transportation
$52.5 billion (+10.3%) – Department of Veterans Affairs
$51.7 billion (+40.9%) – Department of State and Other International Programs
$47.5 billion (+18.5%) – Department of Housing and Urban Development
$46.7 billion (+12.8%) – Department of Education
$42.7 billion (+1.2%) – Department of Homeland Security
$26.3 billion (−0.4%) – Department of Energy
$26.0 billion (+8.8%) – Department of Agriculture
$23.9 billion (−6.3%) – Department of Justice
$18.7 billion (+5.1%) – National Aeronautics and Space Administration
$13.8 billion (+48.4%) – Department of Commerce
$13.3 billion (+4.7%) – Department of Labor
$13.3 billion (+4.7%) – Department of the Treasury
$12.0 billion (+6.2%) – Department of the Interior
$10.5 billion (+34.6%) – Environmental Protection Agency
$9.7 billion (+10.2%) – Social Security Administration
$7.0 billion (+1.4%) – National Science Foundation
$5.1 billion (−3.8%) – Corps of Engineers
$5.0 billion (+100%-NA) – National Infrastructure Bank
$1.1 billion (+22.2%) – Corporation for National and Community Service
$0.7 billion (0.0%) – Small Business Administration
$0.6 billion (−14.3%) – General Services Administration
$0 billion (−100%-NA) – Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP)
$0 billion (−100%-NA) – Financial stabilization efforts
$11 billion (+275%-NA) – Potential disaster costs
$19.8 billion (+3.7%) – Other Agencies
$105 billion – Other

[ClydeCoulter]

//n/m Zippy covered it.