Government tends to grow in spurts, with budgets not decreasing after each spurt. This “ratchet effect” of fast growth then tapering off amounts to a long-term trend: growth.
You’ve probably seen Rex Nutting’s MarketWatch squib, the subject of many a Tweet and Facebook post. Entitled “Obama spending binge never happened,” it begins, “Of all the falsehoods told about President Barack Obama, the biggest whopper is the one about his reckless spending spree.” Nutting reframes the issue as one of the rate of spending growth … just as Republican apologists did in the ’80s, even though spending under Ronald Reagan’s first term grew at a whopping 8.7 percent — a bigger rate increase than Obama’s. Nutting entitles his graph comparing administrations’ spending growth rates “Slowest spending in decades,” indicating not how much Obama has been spending over revenue, but year-to-year rates of increase.
The prez gets a bad rap.
Well, yes and no. The graph should make party-loyal Republicans and Bush admirers cringe with shame. Sure. But Obama and the current Congress are still spending. Hugely. And rapidly — those dollars fly out the door!
Further, by maintaining high annual deficits, Obama has increased the federal debt so that this year it has shot above 100 percent of current Gross Domestic Product, a first for my lifetime.
Obama can be blamed for not doing the decent thing after the horrible six years of united government under the Republicans, he didn’t reduce spending.
In other words, he’s no Warren G. Harding, who presided over a huge contraction of government spending, thereby helping usher in a quick recovery from the post-Great War bust.
We could use a man like Warren Harding again.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.