Democracy Has Prevailed.

December 3, 2012

Message To Marty Griffin

I happened to hear Marty Griffin this morning on KDKA Radio and he ranted a bit on how much President Obama increased federal spending.

Can someone at KDKA (and I know we have readers at KDKA) please pass this along to Marty?

Here's how it begins:
Of all the falsehoods told about President Barack Obama, the biggest whopper is the one about his reckless spending spree.

As would-be president Mitt Romney tells it: “I will lead us out of this debt and spending inferno.”

Almost everyone believes that Obama has presided over a massive increase in federal spending, an “inferno” of spending that threatens our jobs, our businesses and our children’s future. Even Democrats seem to think it’s true.

But it didn’t happen. Although there was a big stimulus bill under Obama, federal spending is rising at the slowest pace since Dwight Eisenhower brought the Korean War to an end in the 1950s.
And then there's this:
Over Obama’s four budget years, federal spending is on track to rise from $3.52 trillion to $3.58 trillion, an annualized increase of just 0.4%.

There has been no huge increase in spending under the current president, despite what you hear.
And then finally:
After adjusting for inflation, spending under Obama is falling at a 1.4% annual pace — the first decline in real spending since the early 1970s, when Richard Nixon was retreating from the quagmire in Vietnam.

In per capita terms, real spending will drop by nearly 5% from $11,450 per person in 2009 to $10,900 in 2013 (measured in 2009 dollars).
Can someone at KDKA please let Marty know about this?

Thanks.  If he arms himself with the facts he'll look like less of an idiot next time.

2 comments:

Social Justice NPC Anti-Paladin™ said...

Progressive still cling to the "hacktastic dishonesty had to go into that Rex Nutting analysis"

The article claims TARP and Obama's first year of spending with the stimulus as Bush.'s spending.

Even funnier, It credits Obama with the TARP fund paybacks.

So much for TARP being a one time increase in spending and not a +700 billion increase to base line of the budget.

The Growth Deficit and Spending Fairy Tales

EdHeath said...

Yeah, it appears the MarketWatch piece has been generally discredited. But neither is the Republican analysis very accurate. This FactCheck.org article is nothing if not comprehensive (although I didn't see where it mentions automatic stabilizers).