No, no and no! Bush’s proposed budget was NOT artificially high. ** Spending **in 2009 was artificially high. Bush submitted a $3.1 trillion budget. Spending in 2009 was above 3.5 trillion. So, between 2008 and 2009 spending increased from 2.9T to 3.5T or a 20% increase. Most of that increase is for stimulus, auto bailouts, TARP, etc. and should not have been part of any budget baseline period. Obama no doubt inherited a bloated budget from Bush and added to it in 2009. Government has continued spending at that bloated level since then.
I don’t think it matters at whose feet you place all the one-time spending. It was never removed from the budget baseline which does, in effect, make year-over-year increases since then small by comparison. None of this changes the fact that there was a huge artificial spike in spending in 2009 due to one-time programs that should have been removed from future budgets.
Okay, I see your point. In that case, I am willing to concede that Obama has maintained an artificially high level of spending. I am curious about one thing, though: how much of that is attributable to putting the cost of the Iraq War “back on the books”?
Whenever you’re talking about increases/decreases/growth, you almost always need to look at:
-Relative figures
-Absolute figures
Not just-one-or-the-other, because either one can be made to look good or bad depending on context. I see this all the damn time and it’s infuriating when people make arguments without uniting the two.
Total spending in 2009 is total spending in 2009…this includes the budget, all one-time expenditures, appropriations, etc. The wars were not “on the books” in 2009. The Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2009 funded the wars. Since then there have been no “books” as we have not passed a budget since 2009.
You seem to be incapable of comprehending this very basic point. I covered that in #1 in my numbered post to you. Did you read that? If not please do. When you finish reading that please read the rest of my post instead of snipping one sentence to argue with.
One last time…caveman style: Big increase in 2009 contain one-time spending. One-time spending not removed. Obama spend at 2009 level in 2010 and 2011. Spending increase small because large amount from 2009 still in budget.
If you are trying to prove that year-to-year increase in spending is low and nothing more then, yes, that has already been established. I’m trying…really trying…to show you why that is a meaningless number.
The 2002 budget was 2 trillion.
The 2009 budget was 3.1 trillion. So over Bush’s terms he averaged 6.8% of increase a year.
Since you want to discount the stimulus and tarp and all, assume Obama’s term begins with the 2009 budget, or 3.1 trillion. In 2013 the budget is 3.8 trillion. That’s 4.5% a year increase. If you ignore the extra cost of the recovery stuff.
Is my math off on this? I don’t have time to check it right now.
Spending in 2009 was over 3.5 trillion. 2013 spending is still an unknown. Where do you get that I’m discounting stimulus, tarp, etc? The % increase is a meaningless number. I’ve been over this too many times to count.
Wrong about what exactly? If you are still saying that Obama had the smallest increase in year-to-year spending in 2010 and 2011 I’ve already said that is correct. I assume you must have some point to make. So…make it.
Check this out: 2008’s budget was 2.9 trillion. 2009 was 3.1, but it got pushed up by one time costs due to the economy getting destroyed, right?
So Bush increased by an average of 6.8% a year over his term if you ignore the economic downturn costs (tarp and whatnot). His spending per year* goes higher* if you use the 3.5 trillion number.
And Obama’s increases are lower if you start him at 3.5 trillion.
I was going by the budget for 2013 which is listed at 3.8 trillion.
So your argument is that the stimulus numbers raise Obama’s first year enough to make his small increases meaningless, makes no sense.
If you ignore the stimulus and just use the number Bush wanted for 2009, Obama raised the budget spending from 3.1 trillion to 3.8 trillion. This is much, much less than Bush did on average, since bush over eight years raised the budget from 2 trillion to 3.1.
Again, if you count 2009 at 3.5 trillion, you make Bush look worse and Obama look better!
Can you understand that 2009 was that unusual year that we had to save the economy? The spending increase from '08 to '09 was something like 18%. Wanna blame it all on Bush? Okay. The big increase was for one-time spending as I’ve stated at least a hundred times in this thread alone. That one-time spending was never removed from the budget baseline and we continued to spend at the same level. I really don’t understand what is so complicated about this.
As an aside, Bush submitted a budget of 3.1 trillion in '09. My understanding is that the total spent in 2009 was 3.5 trillion. If you have a link that says total spending was even higher then please provide it. It still doesn’t make a difference to my argument.
Sorry if that was not clear. Total spending, of course, includes all the appropriations. You wondered what the numbers would look like with the war spending “on the books”. I was explaining that the war spending in 2009 was an appropriation just as it was during the Bush years. Since then we have not had a budget so, by definition, the war spending is not in the budget.
So what? As I’ve stated over and over again it doesn’t matter who you blame the spending on. The spending was not supposed to be added to the annual budget. **PLEASE
** read my posts on this page so I can quit typing the same thing over and over.
Good lord man…read my posts on this page and try to keep up. I’ve been through this like 3 times already. If you are just trying to wear me down by making me answer questions I’ve already answered three times then I give up.
I was under the impression that war spending prior to 2009 was “off budget” and that Obama put it back into the budget. Please correct me if I’m wrong.