{"id":167,"date":"2012-10-16T08:28:17","date_gmt":"2012-10-16T13:28:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.themodestproposal.com\/?p=167"},"modified":"2012-10-18T14:54:55","modified_gmt":"2012-10-18T19:54:55","slug":"obama-has-reduced-the-deficit-period","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.themodestproposal.com\/?p=167","title":{"rendered":"Obama has reduced the deficit. Period."},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\t\t\t\t\tTweet<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div><\/div>

We often hear (and will continue to hear) an incorrect assertion that President Obama has increased the deficit. \u00a0Mitt Romney’s own campaign website states, \u201cSince President Obama assumed office three years ago, federal spending has accelerated at a pace without precedent in recent history.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is a lie and based largely on counting Bush spending as Obama spending. \u00a0It has been fact checked<\/a>\u00a0thoroughly, but Romney and other Republican critics of Obama continue to use repeat this lie including in the first Presidential debate. \u00a0In fact, the deficit is lower in 2012 than it was when Obama took office, and once adjusted for inflation, Obama has actually reduced government spending at a rate faster than Presidents Kennedy,\u00a0Carter, Nixon, Clinton, both George Bush’s, and even Ronald\u00a0Reagan (see table below).<\/p>\n

Here are the numbers from the CBO<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Oct 2008 to Oct 2009 – $1.2 trillion deficit<\/strong> (On Jan 2009, 2 weeks before Obama took office the CBO correctly projected this deficit. \u00a0On other words, this was estimated before Obama had implemented ANY policies<\/span>)
\nOct 2009 to Oct 2010 – $1.4 trillion deficit<\/strong> (this number still has much of Bush’s policies, including the TARP but also \u00a0includes much of Obama’s policies\u00a0battling\u00a0the \u00a0financial crisis hit the budget)
\nOct 2010 to Oct 2011 – $1.3 trillion deficit<\/strong>
\nOct 2011 to Oct 2012 – $1.1 trillion<\/strong><\/p>\n

The fact is that Obama has presided over historic reduction in spending compared to his\u00a0predecessors. \u00a0Here’s a table using inflation-adjusted figures that tells that story (ranked from most increases in spending to least):<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
\n

President<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Fiscal year baseline<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Last fiscal year<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Average percentage increase per year<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

Johnson<\/td>\n1964<\/td>\n1969<\/td>\n6.3<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
George W. Bush<\/td>\n2001<\/td>\n2009<\/td>\n5.9<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Kennedy<\/td>\n1961<\/td>\n1964<\/td>\n4.7<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Carter<\/td>\n1977<\/td>\n1981<\/td>\n4.2<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Nixon<\/td>\n1969<\/td>\n1975<\/td>\n3.0<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Reagan<\/td>\n1981<\/td>\n1989<\/td>\n2.7<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
George H.W. Bush<\/td>\n1989<\/td>\n1993<\/td>\n1.8<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Clinton<\/td>\n1993<\/td>\n2001<\/td>\n1.5<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Obama<\/td>\n2009<\/td>\n2013<\/td>\n-0.1<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Eisenhower<\/td>\n1953<\/td>\n1961<\/td>\n-0.5<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

So when Mitt Romney states that spending under\u00a0Obama has “accelerated at a pace without precedent in recent history<\/a>,” what he should be saying is that spending under Obama has actually risen “slower than at any time in nearly 60 years.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We often hear (and will continue to hear) an incorrect assertion that President Obama has increased the deficit. \u00a0Mitt Romney’s own campaign website states, \u201cSince President Obama assumed office three years ago, federal spending has accelerated at a pace without precedent in recent history.\u201d This is a lie and based largely on counting Bush spending as Obama spending. \u00a0It has been fact checked\u00a0thoroughly, but Romney and other Republican critics of Obama continue to use repeat this lie including in the first Presidential debate. \u00a0In fact, the deficit is lower in 2012 than it was when Obama took office, and once \u2026 Continue reading this post → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[38,37,35,36],"class_list":["post-167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2012-election","tag-debt","tag-deficit","tag-election","tag-obama"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.themodestproposal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.themodestproposal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.themodestproposal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.themodestproposal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.themodestproposal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=167"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.themodestproposal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":174,"href":"http:\/\/www.themodestproposal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167\/revisions\/174"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.themodestproposal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.themodestproposal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.themodestproposal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}