Politics and Religion

Had MrNoRealWorldExperience had any real world experience,
NeedleDicktheBugFucker 22 Reviews 1848 reads
posted

he would have intuitively known Nutting's claims, (now being trumpeted by Obama's entire leftwing media lapdogs and lapped up by MrNRWE) were bunk.

Posted 05/24/2012 05:56 PM ET
Budget: You wouldn't think that, after adding $5 trillion to the U.S.' debt, President Obama would seriously claim he's a fiscal hawk. But thanks to a misleading article on CBS' MarketWatch site, that's just what he's doing.

'Since I've been president, federal spending has risen at the lowest pace in nearly 60 years," Obama said on Wednesday. "Think about that."

Obama didn't turn to his own Office of Management and Budget to support this fact, or even the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office.

Instead, he went to a CBS MarketWatch column by Rex Nutting, which claims spending under Obama has risen by an average of just 1.4%.

"Federal spending," he wrote, "is rising at the slowest pace since Dwight Eisenhower brought the Korean War to an end in the 1950s."

Nutting even posted a chart to "prove" his case, which appears to show average annual spending hikes under Obama coming in well under that of his predecessors.

Not surprisingly, this "fact" lit up the left-wing blogosphere, with the White House quickly parading the article to dismiss GOP attacks.

There's just one problem. Nutting had it wrong.

In fact, he made two significant mistakes that have the effect of hiding Obama's huge spending spree, mistakes that even Nutting's conservative critics missed.

The first is that Nutting apparently failed to understand how the government accounted for TARP in the federal budget.

TARP wasn't a spending program. It was a loan to troubled banks that those banks were supposed to pay back, with interest.

Nevertheless, when the government handed out TARP loans in fiscal year 2009, they showed up in the budget as regular outlays, adding $154 billion to the official spending number that year.

And when banks started paying the loans back in 2010, the money was subtracted from spending that year, making federal outlays look $108 billion smaller than they actually were.

In 2011, TARP artificially subtracted another $38 billion from spending, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Because Nutting didn't factor this in, he ends up greatly exaggerating spending under Bush in 2009 — which Nutting counts as Bush's last budget since the first four months were on Bush's watch — and undercounting Obama's real spending hikes in 2010. (We asked Nutting by email if he was aware of this oversight and have not heard back.)

In addition, Nutting failed to account for the fact that the government was also busy bailing out Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, with the bulk of the bailout money going out in 2009, and then quickly tapering off in 2010 and 2011. That, too, artificially boosted spending levels in 2009.

In fact, it's because of the unique nature of TARP and the Fannie/Freddie bailouts that the CBO counted them separately in its Monthly Budget Review reports (http://cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/attachments/2011_Nov_MBR. pdf) — something Nutting apparently never bothered to check when putting together his bogus chart.

Just how much of a difference does this make?

Nutting says spending under Bush shot up 17.9% between 2008 and 2009.

But when you subtract the effects of TARP, the Fannie/Freddie bailouts as well as the $115 billion in stimulus money Obama added in 2009, that figure drops to 6%.

And while Nutting claims Obama cut spending 1.8% between 2009 and 2010, when you fix Nutting's mistakes, it turns out that Obama jacked up spending 12% in 2010.

That sure looks like a "spending binge" to us.

Another big problem with Nutting's claim is that he didn't adjust his spending numbers for inflation, which makes spending increases look much bigger during higher inflation years.

For example, when you adjust for inflation in Reagan's first term, it turns out that spending climbed an average of just 3.3%, instead of the 8.7% Nutting claims.

When you make all these adjustments, what you find is that only President Johnson beats Obama's three-year spending splurge, and that's because Johnson was implementing his massive Great Society programs while also expanding the war effort in Vietnam.

Of course, much of the confusion about who's a big spender is easily resolved by looking at government spending as a share of GDP, which is the most reliable calculus since it measures government's claim on the entire economy.

In Obama's first term, federal spending will average 23.8% of GDP, according to the CBO.

For those keeping score, that's higher than it's ever been since World War II. And it's more than twice as high as it ever got during the Great Depression.

So much for the claim that Obama isn't a big spender.

It's bad enough that we have to deal with Obama's constant efforts to distort his own dismal record. It's far worse when members of the mainstream press do his dirty work for him.
http://news.investors.com/articleprint/612620/201205241756/obama-is-a-spendthrift.aspx

...there's no apparent author. Who wrote this piece? Maybe I just missed it.

Oh, I did find an interesting wiki entry on this paper. Take a look at the section on editorals.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Investor's_Business_Daily

Moving on, here's what my lack of real world experience has taught me:

1) If you look at the debt alone, under Reagan the debt nearly quadrupled. Under Dubya it doubled. Under Obama it's risen by just a third, and most of that is because Obama was handed the worse economic contraction since the Great Depression, the Bush tax cuts, plus two wars.

2) The MarketWatch article clearly states that the debts added in 2009 properly belongs to Bush, since the federal budget for that fiscal year was created in Oct. of 2008.

3) Just as an aside, since I have no real world experience, I know that we've had a hiring freeze in our office for the last several years. Obama capped agency growth at 5%, a rate that's unheard of.

4) The article is blaming Obama for the ARTICLE not referencing the CBO? Talk about weird. Oh, Mr. No Real World Experience did reference the CBO three days ago. Here's the link again in case you missed it.

http://cbo.gov/publication/43262

5) Under Obama, TARP restrictions were highly tightened. He even threatened to limit executive bonuses, remember? This gave the banks the incentive to pay back the loans post-haste, to get out from under the terms of TARP. If these loans COST the gov't money then they should be counted towards the deficit. If paying back those loans MADE MONEY for the gov't under Obama, then they should count as revenue to offset other deficits. IBD apparently has a problem with anyone counting TARP being repaid. They act like it shouldn't be counted at all.

6) The stimulus and other bail outs (such as Freddie and Fannie) does count as Obama spending. However, this spending was REQUIRED, due to the mismanagement of the Bush administration. Obama also increased spending in Afghanistan, which was REQUIRED due to Bush's mishandling of that war, and that spending produced results, as bin Laden so quickly found out.

7) Spending only climbed 3.3% in Reagan's first term? Really? By factoring in for inflation in what? Today's dollars? Just 3.3% from the guy who said, "deficits don't matter"? Take a look at federal spending under the Reagan years, and tell me it rose just 3.3%. (see the pretty graph below)

8) Now comes my favorite part of this article. This is truly priceless. Here, I'll quote it:

"Of course, much of the confusion about who's a big spender is easily resolved by looking at government spending as a share of GDP, which is the most reliable calculus since it measures government's claim on the entire economy.

In Obama's first term, federal spending will average 23.8% of GDP, according to the CBO.

For those keeping score, that's higher than it's ever been since World War II."

Now, Mr.NoBug, with all your real world experience, you've got to see the logical fallacy of that, right?

Why, oh why, would federal spending as a share of GDP skyrocket under Obama? Could it possibly be that when he was sworn into office, THE ENTIRE FUCKING ECONOMY IS TANKING IN THE WORSE ECONOMIC CONTRACTION SINCE THE FUCKING GREAT DEPRESSION?!?!?!?!?!?

Let's take a look at federal spending as a percentage of GDP.

http://redst8r.files.wordpress.com/2010/02/federal-spending.jpg

Now let's compare this, with what US GDP IS.

http://www.investmentpostcards.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/gdp.jpg

dumb-da-dumb-dumb.

-- Modified on 5/25/2012 11:47:49 PM

Timbow310 reads

Posted By: willywonka4u
...there's no apparent author. Who wrote this piece? Maybe I just missed it.

Oh, I did find an interesting wiki entry on this paper. Take a look at the section on editorals.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Investor's_Business_Daily

Moving on, here's what my lack of real world experience has taught me:

1) If you look at the debt alone, under Reagan the debt nearly quadrupled. Under Dubya it doubled. Under Obama it's risen by just a third, and most of that is because Obama was handed the worse economic contraction since the Great Depression, the Bush tax cuts, plus two wars.

2) The MarketWatch article clearly states that the debts added in 2009 properly belongs to Bush, since the federal budget for that fiscal year was created in Oct. of 2008.

3) Just as an aside, since I have no real world experience, I know that we've had a hiring freeze in our office for the last several years. Obama capped agency growth at 5%, a rate that's unheard of.

4) The article is blaming Obama for the ARTICLE not referencing the CBO? Talk about weird. Oh, Mr. No Real World Experience did reference the CBO three days ago. Here's the link again in case you missed it.

http://cbo.gov/publication/43262

5) Under Obama, TARP restrictions were highly tightened. He even threatened to limit executive bonuses, remember? This gave the banks the incentive to pay back the loans post-haste, to get out from under the terms of TARP. If these loans COST the gov't money then they should be counted towards the deficit. If paying back those loans MADE MONEY for the gov't under Obama, then they should count as revenue to offset other deficits. IBD apparently has a problem with anyone counting TARP being repaid. They act like it shouldn't be counted at all.

6) The stimulus and other bail outs (such as Freddie and Fannie) does count as Obama spending. However, this spending was REQUIRED, due to the mismanagement of the Bush administration. Obama also increased spending in Afghanistan, which was REQUIRED due to Bush's mishandling of that war, and that spending produced results, as bin Laden so quickly found out.

7) Spending only climbed 3.3% in Reagan's first term? Really? By factoring in for inflation in what? Today's dollars? Just 3.3% from the guy who said, "deficits don't matter"? Take a look at federal spending under the Reagan years, and tell me it rose just 3.3%. (see the pretty graph below)

8) Now comes my favorite part of this article. This is truly priceless. Here, I'll quote it:

"Of course, much of the confusion about who's a big spender is easily resolved by looking at government spending as a share of GDP, which is the most reliable calculus since it measures government's claim on the entire economy.

In Obama's first term, federal spending will average 23.8% of GDP, according to the CBO.

For those keeping score, that's higher than it's ever been since World War II."

Now, Mr.NoBug, with all your real world experience, you've got to see the logical fallacy of that, right?

Why, oh why, would federal spending as a share of GDP skyrocket under Obama? Could it possibly be that when he was sworn into office, THE ENTIRE FUCKING ECONOMY IS TANKING IN THE WORSE ECONOMIC CONTRACTION SINCE THE FUCKING GREAT DEPRESSION?!?!?!?!?!?

Let's take a look at federal spending as a percentage of GDP.

http://redst8r.files.wordpress.com/2010/02/federal-spending.jpg

Now let's compare this, with what US GDP IS.

http://www.investmentpostcards.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/gdp.jpg

dumb-da-dumb-dumb.

-- Modified on 5/25/2012 11:47:49 PM

but the repayment of tarp to Obama. Just like Obama's 2/2009 $800 Billion Porkulous Spending Bill goes to Bush because that was Bush's budget year.

well, okay then, bush was a big spender whose stimulus spending saved millions of jobs and the entire free world from collapsing.

what has obama done?:D

...I would think that you could comprehend that the federal budget for fiscal year was created in Oct. 2008 and ended Sept. 2009. Now additional spended can be added during the year. That's how the Iraq War was paid for. It's also how the stimulus was paid for. The stimulus is clearly Obama spending, while the federal budget for that year was clearly Bush's. TARP was spent under both administrations.

I'm reminded of something free market economist Henry Hazlitt once said: "The bad economist sees only the direct consequences of a proposed course; the good economist looks also at the longer and indirect consequences."

Here, Mr. Real World Experience is a very bad economist. You're looking at the stimulus as a cost, without counting any of it's benefits. The economy has grown because of the stimulus, and unemployment is lower than it would otherwise be.

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