Can we settle this once and for all?
September 2, 2012 6:32 PM Subscribe
Who Is The Smallest Government Spender Since Eisenhower? Would You Believe It's Barack Obama? is a Forbes op-ed from May 2012. Please help me parse this, and explain to me why, if its true, the President isn't putting this information on every billboard in the United States.
I am trying to prove a point to some of my conservative friends who, while vehemently disagreeing with the article, seem to be unable to explain to me why it isn't true.
The article appears logical to me, but I'd like some help making sense of it if it is untrue, as economics is not my strong suit.
Thanks, as always, for straightening me out.
I am trying to prove a point to some of my conservative friends who, while vehemently disagreeing with the article, seem to be unable to explain to me why it isn't true.
The article appears logical to me, but I'd like some help making sense of it if it is untrue, as economics is not my strong suit.
Thanks, as always, for straightening me out.
The voters Obama needs to turn out this year don't give two shits about nihilist budgetary Randian froth. The voters that do care about GOVERNMENT SPENDING are firmly in the Republican camp anyway. So leading with this messaging would get him nowhere.
People vastly overestimate the effect that logic and facts has on decisionmaking and voter behavior. See Lakoff & Westen.
posted by Hollywood Upstairs Medical College at 6:36 PM on September 2, 2012 [15 favorites]
People vastly overestimate the effect that logic and facts has on decisionmaking and voter behavior. See Lakoff & Westen.
posted by Hollywood Upstairs Medical College at 6:36 PM on September 2, 2012 [15 favorites]
Well "smallest" is not at all what the article says, despite its title -- it says he grew government the least in terms of percentage (not even in terms of actual dollars), but since it started huge it's still huge -- probably the most money in actual terms ever, though I don't actually know that for sure.
posted by brainmouse at 6:38 PM on September 2, 2012 [2 favorites]
posted by brainmouse at 6:38 PM on September 2, 2012 [2 favorites]
Response by poster: Not to threadsit, but interestingly, I have a conservative friend on Facebook arguing that the article is completely untrue, and another conservative friend arguing that if it is true, it is only true because Obama has so overwhelmingly ignored the poor.
posted by 4ster at 6:38 PM on September 2, 2012
posted by 4ster at 6:38 PM on September 2, 2012
It's misleading in two respects: first, it's comparing percentage growth rather than absolute numbers (so you could just as easily say Obama is the biggest spender of all time); and second, it rightly counts TARP as Bush administration spending, meaning that Obama's 1.4% growth is 1.4% on top of TARP (which was supposedly one-time-only emergency spending). If you factored out TARP, Obama's percent increase would be much higher.
posted by gerryblog at 6:43 PM on September 2, 2012 [5 favorites]
posted by gerryblog at 6:43 PM on September 2, 2012 [5 favorites]
Non-flip answer to follow.
I dug up some public polling for you. See page 12 of this Pew survey. Full crosstabs are not available (the most useful split would be to see how undecided and low-turnout voters answered the question), but you will see that 86% of Republicans view the budget deficit as "very important", while only 63% of Democrats and 76% of Independents do.
In this year's Presidential race, battle lines are set. There will be very little crossover of Republicans to Obama, so what they think is basically irrelevant. The economy is king, and it has little to do with the debt ceiling, the fiscal cliff, and the other reckless nonsense the Tea Party wing is spouting.
posted by Hollywood Upstairs Medical College at 6:45 PM on September 2, 2012 [4 favorites]
I dug up some public polling for you. See page 12 of this Pew survey. Full crosstabs are not available (the most useful split would be to see how undecided and low-turnout voters answered the question), but you will see that 86% of Republicans view the budget deficit as "very important", while only 63% of Democrats and 76% of Independents do.
In this year's Presidential race, battle lines are set. There will be very little crossover of Republicans to Obama, so what they think is basically irrelevant. The economy is king, and it has little to do with the debt ceiling, the fiscal cliff, and the other reckless nonsense the Tea Party wing is spouting.
posted by Hollywood Upstairs Medical College at 6:45 PM on September 2, 2012 [4 favorites]
76% of independents sounds to me like an important group.
posted by feral_goldfish at 6:49 PM on September 2, 2012 [1 favorite]
posted by feral_goldfish at 6:49 PM on September 2, 2012 [1 favorite]
It is eclipsed by the economy at 86% and jobs at 81%. Remember that most independents are not really swing voters. Independents open to Democrats behave more as Democrats would.
You'll notice how the President's campaign closely mirrors the order of issues that beat "budget deficit" among Democrats.
1) Jobs 86% (GM is alive thanks to me)
1) Education 86% (Pell grants, student loan reform)
3) Health care 84% (Specific bits of Obamacare: women's health, young people staying on family insurance)
4) Economy 83% (It's gotten better under Obama, but Romney would turn the recovery into a smoking crater where the steel mills once were)
5) Medicare 77% (Paul Ryan is voucherizing your shit)
And then several more before "deficit". Note who those bits are targeted to.
Obama won in 2008 based on a huge surge of base voters (minority, young, single women), the same will happen this time.
The scenario is far different downticket, where electorates are far less polarized and Democrats have been picking up some deficit hawk language with some success.
posted by Hollywood Upstairs Medical College at 6:59 PM on September 2, 2012 [4 favorites]
You'll notice how the President's campaign closely mirrors the order of issues that beat "budget deficit" among Democrats.
1) Jobs 86% (GM is alive thanks to me)
1) Education 86% (Pell grants, student loan reform)
3) Health care 84% (Specific bits of Obamacare: women's health, young people staying on family insurance)
4) Economy 83% (It's gotten better under Obama, but Romney would turn the recovery into a smoking crater where the steel mills once were)
5) Medicare 77% (Paul Ryan is voucherizing your shit)
And then several more before "deficit". Note who those bits are targeted to.
Obama won in 2008 based on a huge surge of base voters (minority, young, single women), the same will happen this time.
The scenario is far different downticket, where electorates are far less polarized and Democrats have been picking up some deficit hawk language with some success.
posted by Hollywood Upstairs Medical College at 6:59 PM on September 2, 2012 [4 favorites]
That article is an op/ed piece, so the offhand dismissal of the GOP controlled House probably should not be taken so lightly. One of Obama's biggest handicaps has always been his utter lack of political influence over Congress.
posted by Ardiril at 7:11 PM on September 2, 2012
posted by Ardiril at 7:11 PM on September 2, 2012
Even if it were completely true (and I think it is, but with a lot of caveat and handwaving as detailed above), bringing it up would be a net loss for one reason: you don't let the opponent frame the argument. Especially when you are the president.
The budget nonsense is a distraction created by the GOP to deflect blame for their own culpability in creating the mess. They are saying "you suck for not fixing the mess we helped create". You don't fight nonsense on its own level.
posted by gjc at 7:57 PM on September 2, 2012 [2 favorites]
The budget nonsense is a distraction created by the GOP to deflect blame for their own culpability in creating the mess. They are saying "you suck for not fixing the mess we helped create". You don't fight nonsense on its own level.
posted by gjc at 7:57 PM on September 2, 2012 [2 favorites]
What is the question you are trying to answer?
When it comes to government budgets, there is an important distinction between discretionary and mandatory spending. Just because there were greater payments under President One than President Two doesn't necessarily mean this is the fault of President One: a recession is a classic example that pushes up mandatory spending (more unemployment payments and other welfare programs).
Of course, there are examples where increases in mandatory spending can be attributed to a President: by introducing more generous unemployment laws, President One is responsible for that increase in mandatory spending. However, generally speaking, changes in existing mandatory spending are caused by broader socio-economic factors normally outside the direct control of Government (unemployment rates, demographic factors, etc.).
The figures in the article are for all spending, both discretionary and mandatory. If you split them out, (Tables 8 here), you might get closer to finding an answer. You can see very clearly the drastic halt and then reversal in discretionary spending from FY 2011 – it doesn’t grow again until FY 2016. Mandatory spending looks the same – with a very important and large rise in FY 2009 (recession!) and a drop in FY 2010 (recovery!) – but then returning to a normal pattern.
So back to the question. From these figures, then yes, President Obama has taken a meat-axe to discretionary spending. Granted, FY 2012 onwards are only estimates, so whether this dramatic reduction in discretionary spending actually materialises is an open-question, but you have to give credit for a 0.00% rise in FY 2011. In regards to mandatory spending, there is no significant change attributable to the President’s actions, that can be determined from these numbers.
why, if its true, the President isn't putting this information on every billboard in the United States
Because the truth is complicated, and the public's eyes glaze over when you try to explain to them the difference between discretionary and mandatory spending. Believe me, I've tried it at parties. It does not go down well.
posted by kithrater at 8:13 PM on September 2, 2012 [1 favorite]
When it comes to government budgets, there is an important distinction between discretionary and mandatory spending. Just because there were greater payments under President One than President Two doesn't necessarily mean this is the fault of President One: a recession is a classic example that pushes up mandatory spending (more unemployment payments and other welfare programs).
Of course, there are examples where increases in mandatory spending can be attributed to a President: by introducing more generous unemployment laws, President One is responsible for that increase in mandatory spending. However, generally speaking, changes in existing mandatory spending are caused by broader socio-economic factors normally outside the direct control of Government (unemployment rates, demographic factors, etc.).
The figures in the article are for all spending, both discretionary and mandatory. If you split them out, (Tables 8 here), you might get closer to finding an answer. You can see very clearly the drastic halt and then reversal in discretionary spending from FY 2011 – it doesn’t grow again until FY 2016. Mandatory spending looks the same – with a very important and large rise in FY 2009 (recession!) and a drop in FY 2010 (recovery!) – but then returning to a normal pattern.
So back to the question. From these figures, then yes, President Obama has taken a meat-axe to discretionary spending. Granted, FY 2012 onwards are only estimates, so whether this dramatic reduction in discretionary spending actually materialises is an open-question, but you have to give credit for a 0.00% rise in FY 2011. In regards to mandatory spending, there is no significant change attributable to the President’s actions, that can be determined from these numbers.
why, if its true, the President isn't putting this information on every billboard in the United States
Because the truth is complicated, and the public's eyes glaze over when you try to explain to them the difference between discretionary and mandatory spending. Believe me, I've tried it at parties. It does not go down well.
posted by kithrater at 8:13 PM on September 2, 2012 [1 favorite]
You are correct though to note that there are myths that (1) Democrats are big spenders and (2) Republicans fight deficits. Neither is true.
posted by lathrop at 8:17 PM on September 2, 2012 [2 favorites]
posted by lathrop at 8:17 PM on September 2, 2012 [2 favorites]
Oh, and from an economic perspective, policies which lead to an increase in mandatory spending seen in a recession are known as automatic stabilisers.
posted by kithrater at 8:17 PM on September 2, 2012
posted by kithrater at 8:17 PM on September 2, 2012
Simple: the article isn't actually looking at spending, but the growth in spending. President Obama has, without question, overseen the largest federal budgets in US history any other administration, including during WW II.
So the article is simply flat-out wrong. The author conflates "rate of growth in spending" with "spending," which is misleading to the point of being disingenuous. But he's actually just wrong about his core claim, misleading or no. The government spent $1.5 trillion in 1994 under Clinton. The annualized growth the author claims for that year, 3.2%, is $52.5 billion. But the government spent $3.8 trillion in 2011 under Obama, and the claimed annualized 1.4% of that comes out to $53.2 billion. So the only way the author can actually make the claim and not be lying through his teeth is if you only look at the percent change in spending, annualized and averaged over the Presidents' terms. This isn't a terribly interesting figure. But the fact that every single President since Eisenhower has had a positive average spending increase, Obama must, as a simple matter of mathematics, have spent more money than anyone before him. So the claim, on its face, is an enormous whopper.
Further, the author completely ignores the stimulus spending, essentially chalking it up entirely to President Bush. This is improper. First, Bush had his own stimulus package, and that's accounted for under his administration. Second, even if something arguably needed to be done in 2009, Obama asked for the $787 billion that was ultimately passed in the ARRA. He could have asked for less, but he didn't, so that's properly credited to him.
Third, it's hard to actually tell what the government has budgeted, because the Democratic cowards in the Senate haven't passed one since April 2009. Three of Obama's four years in office have been run without a budget being passed by Congress. So no one really gets any credit for trying to keep costs down, because the government hasn't actually adjusted its spending priorities since the last time the Democrats controlled both houses of Congress. Which makes sense, because in the absence of a new budget, the last one basically rolls over, so all of the increases the Dems forced through in 2009 would be at risk with a Republican-controlled House. Rather than revisit those issues, Harry Reid has refused to even put a budget up for filibuster. Not on the table at all.
posted by valkyryn at 8:23 PM on September 2, 2012 [3 favorites]
So the article is simply flat-out wrong. The author conflates "rate of growth in spending" with "spending," which is misleading to the point of being disingenuous. But he's actually just wrong about his core claim, misleading or no. The government spent $1.5 trillion in 1994 under Clinton. The annualized growth the author claims for that year, 3.2%, is $52.5 billion. But the government spent $3.8 trillion in 2011 under Obama, and the claimed annualized 1.4% of that comes out to $53.2 billion. So the only way the author can actually make the claim and not be lying through his teeth is if you only look at the percent change in spending, annualized and averaged over the Presidents' terms. This isn't a terribly interesting figure. But the fact that every single President since Eisenhower has had a positive average spending increase, Obama must, as a simple matter of mathematics, have spent more money than anyone before him. So the claim, on its face, is an enormous whopper.
Further, the author completely ignores the stimulus spending, essentially chalking it up entirely to President Bush. This is improper. First, Bush had his own stimulus package, and that's accounted for under his administration. Second, even if something arguably needed to be done in 2009, Obama asked for the $787 billion that was ultimately passed in the ARRA. He could have asked for less, but he didn't, so that's properly credited to him.
Third, it's hard to actually tell what the government has budgeted, because the Democratic cowards in the Senate haven't passed one since April 2009. Three of Obama's four years in office have been run without a budget being passed by Congress. So no one really gets any credit for trying to keep costs down, because the government hasn't actually adjusted its spending priorities since the last time the Democrats controlled both houses of Congress. Which makes sense, because in the absence of a new budget, the last one basically rolls over, so all of the increases the Dems forced through in 2009 would be at risk with a Republican-controlled House. Rather than revisit those issues, Harry Reid has refused to even put a budget up for filibuster. Not on the table at all.
posted by valkyryn at 8:23 PM on September 2, 2012 [3 favorites]
Further, the author completely ignores the stimulus spending, essentially chalking it up entirely to President Bush.
I believe this is incorrect -- it looks like the 2009 stimulus is reassigned to Obama. However, TARP isn't, which still skews the numbers in exactly the way you describe.
posted by gerryblog at 9:16 PM on September 2, 2012
I believe this is incorrect -- it looks like the 2009 stimulus is reassigned to Obama. However, TARP isn't, which still skews the numbers in exactly the way you describe.
posted by gerryblog at 9:16 PM on September 2, 2012
I would agree that the title of the article is deceptive, probably to be intentionally provocative and possibly influenced by an editor seeking page hits after it was already written rather than solely the author's choice.
But what he actually says in the body of the article seems accurate to me. Republicans started with this "Obama is a big spender" stuff as soon as he got into office and throughout his term many journalists have pointed out that most of the federal budget results from simply maintaining expenditures that were set up during the Bush administration or previous ones.
What he's saying is that if Obama had been handed the final Clinton budget, for example, and managed it the same way he did with the 2nd term Bush 43 budget he was actually given, it would have been noticeably smaller at the end of four years than it actually was after four years in the hands of a Republican administration. He's pointing out that Republican presidents tend to bloat up the budget they're given by the preceding administration to a noticeably greater degree than Democrats do.
For another example of devilish details, people don't seem to be aware that despite how harsh and draconian the Ryan budget was portrayed as being, it didn't balance the budget until 2040. Nearly thirty years in the future. (And that's if they aren't fudging things or using overly optimistic numbers.) Guess what the Republicans were campaigning on thirty years ago: the exact same thing, with Reagan bemoaning that the government was "living too well" and subsequently after the election driving spending through the roof himself and being the president on watch as the national debt blew past a trillion dollars.
And now... well they got around to cutting Mitt Romney's taxes to 13% and they got around to cutting the brake lines of Wall Street so that they could drive the economy off a cliff but they didn't quite manage to pull off that whole balanced budget, smaller government thing. But just give 'em another thirty years and they'll nail it next time, fer sure!
I am as confounded as you are by how they get away with this sort of thing and I don't get why such a large part of the voting public is unable to see through it and they're able to pull the "we are the party of fiscal responsibility and small government" thing over and over again without being laughed off the stage at every turn. But looking at things like the chart in that article which shows how concertedly government spending increases under Republican administrations it rather seems intentional to me at this point: something they did with the foreknowledge that the bigger they made the government the more budgetary indiscretion they'd have available to blame on their opponents.
posted by XMLicious at 10:22 PM on September 2, 2012 [4 favorites]
But what he actually says in the body of the article seems accurate to me. Republicans started with this "Obama is a big spender" stuff as soon as he got into office and throughout his term many journalists have pointed out that most of the federal budget results from simply maintaining expenditures that were set up during the Bush administration or previous ones.
What he's saying is that if Obama had been handed the final Clinton budget, for example, and managed it the same way he did with the 2nd term Bush 43 budget he was actually given, it would have been noticeably smaller at the end of four years than it actually was after four years in the hands of a Republican administration. He's pointing out that Republican presidents tend to bloat up the budget they're given by the preceding administration to a noticeably greater degree than Democrats do.
For another example of devilish details, people don't seem to be aware that despite how harsh and draconian the Ryan budget was portrayed as being, it didn't balance the budget until 2040. Nearly thirty years in the future. (And that's if they aren't fudging things or using overly optimistic numbers.) Guess what the Republicans were campaigning on thirty years ago: the exact same thing, with Reagan bemoaning that the government was "living too well" and subsequently after the election driving spending through the roof himself and being the president on watch as the national debt blew past a trillion dollars.
And now... well they got around to cutting Mitt Romney's taxes to 13% and they got around to cutting the brake lines of Wall Street so that they could drive the economy off a cliff but they didn't quite manage to pull off that whole balanced budget, smaller government thing. But just give 'em another thirty years and they'll nail it next time, fer sure!
I am as confounded as you are by how they get away with this sort of thing and I don't get why such a large part of the voting public is unable to see through it and they're able to pull the "we are the party of fiscal responsibility and small government" thing over and over again without being laughed off the stage at every turn. But looking at things like the chart in that article which shows how concertedly government spending increases under Republican administrations it rather seems intentional to me at this point: something they did with the foreknowledge that the bigger they made the government the more budgetary indiscretion they'd have available to blame on their opponents.
posted by XMLicious at 10:22 PM on September 2, 2012 [4 favorites]
You want the real answer?
It's not trumpeted as a point of success because it doesn't poll and test well as a point of success. Everything from both sides of the aisle is tested for effectiveness and significant effort is expended in staying on message.
"Obama has spent less than anyone since Eisenhower."
"Who's Eisenhower?"
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 10:34 PM on September 2, 2012 [3 favorites]
It's not trumpeted as a point of success because it doesn't poll and test well as a point of success. Everything from both sides of the aisle is tested for effectiveness and significant effort is expended in staying on message.
"Obama has spent less than anyone since Eisenhower."
"Who's Eisenhower?"
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 10:34 PM on September 2, 2012 [3 favorites]
The author conflates "rate of growth in spending" with "spending," which is misleading to the point of being disingenuous.
Using growth-in-spending as the metric to determine "who spent more" is a common approach in government finances. Granted, these conservations are usually had between people with the shared understanding that government spending almost always increases, which makes the rate of increase an appropriate measure of comparison. Using it to headline an OpEd in the popular press is misleading.
The other approach is to measure the ratio of government spending to GDP. Of course, this is somewhat unfair to a president who takes office in the middle of a recession, but life isn't fair. On this measure, and using the "you're not responsible for your first budget" methodology, you get an average government outlay/GDP ratio for President Bush's last term of 21.5 per cent, and a ratio of 24.0 per cent for President Obama's current term. It doesn't get any better if you decide presidents are responsible for their first budgets, where it becomes 20.1 per cent vs 24.4 per cent.
Those figures would allow anyone to dismiss the argument of the article in a quick and accurate fashion: "If you saved so much money, how come government spending, as a proportion of economic activity, increases in your term?".
posted by kithrater at 10:42 PM on September 2, 2012
Using growth-in-spending as the metric to determine "who spent more" is a common approach in government finances. Granted, these conservations are usually had between people with the shared understanding that government spending almost always increases, which makes the rate of increase an appropriate measure of comparison. Using it to headline an OpEd in the popular press is misleading.
The other approach is to measure the ratio of government spending to GDP. Of course, this is somewhat unfair to a president who takes office in the middle of a recession, but life isn't fair. On this measure, and using the "you're not responsible for your first budget" methodology, you get an average government outlay/GDP ratio for President Bush's last term of 21.5 per cent, and a ratio of 24.0 per cent for President Obama's current term. It doesn't get any better if you decide presidents are responsible for their first budgets, where it becomes 20.1 per cent vs 24.4 per cent.
Those figures would allow anyone to dismiss the argument of the article in a quick and accurate fashion: "If you saved so much money, how come government spending, as a proportion of economic activity, increases in your term?".
posted by kithrater at 10:42 PM on September 2, 2012
I am as confounded as you are by how they get away with this sort of thing and I don't get why such a large part of the voting public is unable to see through it and they're able to pull the "we are the party of fiscal responsibility and small government" thing over and over again without being laughed off the stage at every turn.
Truthiness has always trumped truth in political contests. Always has, always will.
Talking points are essentially analogous to football team chants; they're purely tribal markers, nothing more, and they fulfill this function perfectly well without needing any relationship to reality. All they actually need to be is clearly different from the other side's.
posted by flabdablet at 1:26 AM on September 3, 2012
Truthiness has always trumped truth in political contests. Always has, always will.
Talking points are essentially analogous to football team chants; they're purely tribal markers, nothing more, and they fulfill this function perfectly well without needing any relationship to reality. All they actually need to be is clearly different from the other side's.
posted by flabdablet at 1:26 AM on September 3, 2012
And, I mean, seriously: almost 50% of the outstanding federal debt--just shy of $8 trillion--has been incurred since Obama took office. Whether or not this is his fault is perhaps up for discussion, but no other administration in history has borrowed more money. So calling him the "smallest government spender since Eisenhower" falls somewhere between "damn lies" and "statistics."
posted by valkyryn at 4:01 AM on September 3, 2012 [3 favorites]
posted by valkyryn at 4:01 AM on September 3, 2012 [3 favorites]
Where does the Republican party referring to itself as the party of small government fall in relation to "damn lies" and "statistics?" The notion expressed - in only the article's title, again - that this kind of more restrained growth of budget constitutes being a smaller spender than previous administrations is certainly misleading, as I've said, but sounds like exactly the sort of thing Republicans would be saying themselves and lauding if any of the presidents of their own party had the same record to offer. Which they don't.
So that $8 trillion of debt is the consequence of Obama being handed an initial yearly budget of $3.518 trillion (according to these CBO numbers we're talking about), half of which was deficit, so over four years $8 trillion makes sense to me if he's basically holding the budget steady near what he was given, needs to keep things in his back pocket like multi-trillion dollar tax cuts which the Republicans are going to extort him for, and has the talent it evidently takes to not start any multi-trillion-dollar decade-long wars.
What would Obama have to have done to be an average spender? Reduce the budget by 1.4% on average rather than increase it? Achieve some Herculean fiscal feat and cut his predecessor's budget by 25% or 50%, beyond what has ever been done in modern memory, just to count as average?
A central theme of the article is this double standard. None of Obama's predecessors during the past thirty years reduced the average budget delta across their term to a negative. So Republicans and others wanting to call him a big spender have to completely ignore how much previous administrations expanded the federal budget - have to ignore all the actual numbers indicating what average performance in this respect is - and have to construct a special metric just for him where he could only be regarded as an average or small spender if he cut back on the budget handed to him by the Bush administration, a feat which no other administration in the last three decades has pulled off even in a minor fashion.
Unless I'm misreading in fact no other administration even managed to cut back on one of the budgets they passed to themselves from year to year.
posted by XMLicious at 6:43 AM on September 3, 2012 [1 favorite]
So that $8 trillion of debt is the consequence of Obama being handed an initial yearly budget of $3.518 trillion (according to these CBO numbers we're talking about), half of which was deficit, so over four years $8 trillion makes sense to me if he's basically holding the budget steady near what he was given, needs to keep things in his back pocket like multi-trillion dollar tax cuts which the Republicans are going to extort him for, and has the talent it evidently takes to not start any multi-trillion-dollar decade-long wars.
What would Obama have to have done to be an average spender? Reduce the budget by 1.4% on average rather than increase it? Achieve some Herculean fiscal feat and cut his predecessor's budget by 25% or 50%, beyond what has ever been done in modern memory, just to count as average?
A central theme of the article is this double standard. None of Obama's predecessors during the past thirty years reduced the average budget delta across their term to a negative. So Republicans and others wanting to call him a big spender have to completely ignore how much previous administrations expanded the federal budget - have to ignore all the actual numbers indicating what average performance in this respect is - and have to construct a special metric just for him where he could only be regarded as an average or small spender if he cut back on the budget handed to him by the Bush administration, a feat which no other administration in the last three decades has pulled off even in a minor fashion.
Unless I'm misreading in fact no other administration even managed to cut back on one of the budgets they passed to themselves from year to year.
posted by XMLicious at 6:43 AM on September 3, 2012 [1 favorite]
Do you have a link for that, valkyryn? As far as I can tell the numbers are closer to $5T and 1/3. (The debt was nearly $11T when Bush left office.)
And I suspect that number is cheating the other way by assigning all FY2009, stimulus, and TARP spending to Obama regardless of when it was authorized.
posted by gerryblog at 6:45 AM on September 3, 2012 [1 favorite]
And I suspect that number is cheating the other way by assigning all FY2009, stimulus, and TARP spending to Obama regardless of when it was authorized.
posted by gerryblog at 6:45 AM on September 3, 2012 [1 favorite]
76% of independents sounds to me like an important group.
Probably not. Most of that 76% is just a third of independents who are really Republicans and another third or so who are really just Democrats.
The last third or so of pure independents generally don't have coherent enough political thoughts or preferences for someone to successfully appeal to them as a group. While there are no doubt a few smart pure independents, most pure independents seem to have arrived at being independent because they're too ignorant to have figured out their own preferences.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 8:22 AM on September 3, 2012 [2 favorites]
Probably not. Most of that 76% is just a third of independents who are really Republicans and another third or so who are really just Democrats.
The last third or so of pure independents generally don't have coherent enough political thoughts or preferences for someone to successfully appeal to them as a group. While there are no doubt a few smart pure independents, most pure independents seem to have arrived at being independent because they're too ignorant to have figured out their own preferences.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 8:22 AM on September 3, 2012 [2 favorites]
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by Sara C. at 6:35 PM on September 2, 2012 [2 favorites]