President-elect Obama with Nancy Killefer, the new Chief Performance Officer, for his administration. The news conference held at the transition office in Washington, D.C. on Jan. 7, 2009.
President-elect Obama with former Presidents Bush (41), Carter and Clinton and current President Bush at the WHite House on Jan. 7, 2009.
(Photo by Pete Souza)
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[The following excerpt is from my book, “Rescuing Religion from Republican Reason.”]
(I’ll admit that this is more of a budget lie than a tax lie, but it’s what follows next in the taxation chapter of the book, so I included it here.)
The Republicans love to accuse Democrats of engaging in out-of-control spending. In the case of Barack Obama, they’ve said he spends more per year than any president in history. What they fail to tell us is that this is true for every president, because inflation and population growth drive up spending numbers over time, even without changes in fiscal policy. To make a more accurate assessment of who the big spenders have been, I think it’s best to determine who increased spending the most from year to year. So I’ve gathered total federal spending numbers from the historical tables of the White House budget (which you can find at whitehouse.gov) (these numbers can also be found at the Congressional Budget Office website.), and then I calculated how much each year’s spending increased from the previous year. I then averaged the increases by president to see who increased spending the most.
Spending and Annual Increase % by President
Federal Outlays (billions) / % Increase from Previous Year
1981 678.2 Carter
1982 745.7 Reagan 9.95%
1983 808.4 Reagan 8.41%
1984 851.8 Reagan 5.37%
1985 946.3 Reagan 11.09%
1986 990.4 Reagan 4.66%
1987 1,004.0 Reagan 1.37%
1988 1,064.4 Reagan 6.02%
1989 1,143.7 Reagan 7.45%
1990 1,253.0 Bush41 9.56%
1991 1,324.2 Bush41 5.68%
1992 1,381.5 Bush41 4.32%
1993 1,409.4 Bush41 2.02%
1994 1,461.8 Clinton 3.72%
1995 1,515.7 Clinton 3.69%
1996 1,560.5 Clinton 2.96%
1997 1,601.1 Clinton 2.60%
1998 1,652.5 Clinton 3.21%
1999 1,701.8 Clinton 2.98%
2000 1,789.0 Clinton 5.12%
2001 1,862.8 Clinton 4.12%
2002 2,010.9 Bush43 7.95%
2003 2,159.9 Bush43 7.41%
2004 2,292.8 Bush43 6.15%
2005 2,472.0 Bush43 7.81%
2006 2,655.1 Bush43 7.40%
2007 2,728.7 Bush43 2.77%
2008 2,982.5 Bush43 9.30%
2009 3,517.7 Bush43 11.40%
2010 3,456.2 Obama 10.4%
2011 3,603.1 Obama -1.54%
2012 3,796.0 Obama 5.36%
2013 3,803.0 Obama 0.18%
[Note: 203 billion dollars of Obama stimulus from fiscal year 2009 was subtracted from Bush 43’s 2009 total and added to Obama’s 2010 total when increase percentages were calculated.]
Average Annual % Increase by President
Reagan 6.79%
Bush 41 5.40%
Clinton 3.55%
Bush 43 7.52%
Obama 3.60%
Unlike in the 1970s, inflation levels have been low throughout this period, so they have little effect on the numbers. Ronald Reagan endured an average inflation rate about 1% higher than the other presidents did, so we could knock a point off and lower his increase rate to 5.79% to be fair. Nonetheless, the Republicans prove to have been far bigger spending escalators than the Democrats over the past three decades. Meanwhile, Clinton and Obama have been the most frugal of all modern presidents, increasing spending at rates barely above the inflation rate. Some might argue that Reagan couldn’t cut welfare spending because he had a Democratic Congress and that Clinton may have been restrained by a Republican Congress his last six years. So let’s look at the budget years in which a single party controlled all of Congress and the presidency:
Republicans 2002-2007: 6.58% average spending increase per year.
Democrats 1994-1995, 2010-2011: 4.07% average spending increase per year (This number includes 203 billion dollars of Democrat-approved stimulus money spent during fiscal year 2009.)
Even when they have had total control, Republicans have increased spending at a rate 50% greater than that of the Democrats. And if it weren’t for the economic stimulus needed to fix the free-falling economy when Obama took office, the percentage rate for the Democrats likely would have been lower. If you’ve been voting Republican because you hate government spending, you’ve been taken for a fool.
Tea Party libertarians might argue that it was old guard Republicans who were out-of-control spenders, but if the Tea Party takes over, they will slash spending, and we’ll all be better off. Having worked in the corporate world, I know what happens when budget-slashing executives take control of a company. They mindlessly cut departments’ budgets to the point where they cannot function. The company then loses customers due to poor customer service, lack of product development, and insufficient advertising. Similar catastrophes happen when the government gets slash-happy. If they slash funding for child support collections (my sister worked in this field at a time of budget cuts, so this is her experience), then fathers get away with failing to pay support for their children. Then the women who lose their child support have to go on welfare, costing tax-payers far more than if the budget cuts had never been made. Also, this budget slashing keeps the government from enforcing the law, encouraging more people to do evil. This reality applies to the business world, too. Tea Party libertarian, Ron Paul, proposed to make 40% cuts to regulatory agencies like the FDA and the EPA in his 2012 budget proposal. Should such a proposal ever succeed, it will give license to big businesses to poison our food and our environment. I’m all for making government more efficient and cost effective, and so are many Democrats and Republicans, but the mindless budget slashing of the Tea Party will only lead to disaster.
