Whose Spending?

I missed this infographic before. In a word: yes.

Obama and the Democrats have been extremely dishonest in discussion of the budget and deficits and debt. They blame Bush for FY2009 spending that the Democrat majorities in Congress passed, Bush rejected, and Obama signed into law. They then take credit for the economic improvements over the same time period.

And don't even get me started on the fact that even FY2008 -- which was also a huge increase in spending over previous budgets, one of the greatest single-year non-war spending increases ever -- was the first Democrat budget in more than a decade.

We can debate whether the spending was good or bad. But the fact is that when the Democrats came into office in 2006, with their first budget, spending skyrocketed, and when Obama came into office, it went much, much, higher.

The last Bush / GOP Congress deficit (FY2007) was $160.7B. Spending was $2.73T, 19.7% of GDP. The last budget Bush signed (FY2008, one year later), with Democrat majorities in both houses, was a deficit of $458B, and $2.98T (20.8% GDP) in spending. We're currently at an estimated FY2012 deficit of $1.33T, on $3.8T (24.3% GDP) in spending.

Even if you take the spending Bush proposed in FY2009 as Obama's baseline ($3.11T), it was still far, far lower than what Obama and the Democrats actually spent that year.

And to top it all off, the recent slight decreases in spending a. were probably inevitable given how high Obama and the Democrats had pushed spending in the first place, and b. further inevitable because the Republicans took control of the House.

To say Obama has not dramatically increased spending as President, or -- worse -- that the Democrats are not the ones who have actually massively increased spending since taking Congress in 2006, is just insane.

Really.

Again, we can argue about whether the spending was good or bad. But to say Bush or the Republicans are more to blame for the increase is just lying. Facts are stubborn things.