The chart Krugman and Obama don’t want you to see
November 17, 2012 at 6:46 pm in News by Dustin Siggins 49 Comments
Since 2009, there has been a running narrative among proponents of expansive government that government spending has gone down. I addressed this claim in response to Paul Krugman some time ago, but a nifty new chart came out a few weeks ago that emphasizes the point even better. The chart is immediately below.
What does this chart show? It notes that as a share of the economy, total American government spending surpasses that which took place in World War II. And it’s been getting worse since President Bush took office, but really took off in 2009, when the effects of TARP, the auto bailouts, and other Bush and Obama policies were implemented to “save” the economy.
This is a very significant step we have reached as a nation. Literally, spending is going up faster as a percentage of the economy than it did during the biggest war in the history of the world. But unlike World War II, America won’t have the economic dominance it did after the war (every other major country’s infrastructure was blown to pieces, and many of their non-military citizens had been lost to war, whereas America took no attacks on its shores after Pearl Harbor, and none on its mainland, and had a huge portion of its citizenry still inside the country working), and we will have a huge entitlements problem to worry about.
This is exactly why the Tea Party exists: to make these kinds of facts known, and reverse course on both the growth of spending and the nation’s unacceptably slow rate of economic recovery. Unfortunately, states and the country have massive pension and entitlement problems, so how we move forward will partially be dictated how those programs are reformed for financial reality. Let’s make sure we hold Congress accountable if it fails to face that financial reality.
I guess delusion is a prerequisite for Tea Party membership
@Your Chart is nonsense, There is more than meets the eye. I suggest you stop taking you delusional medication, you know the ones Obama paid for. Maybe then you could see the truth.
No, delusion is a prerequisite for the Democrat sheeples that follow blindly and never question anything…..
Do you mean by that comment that you think the chart is not factual? Could you tell us what’s wrong with the chart? Perhaps provide a different graph of spending v. GDP?
Krugman’s graph looks very much like it was produced using official government numbers. Or is chanting “nyah nyah nyah hyah nyah” all you can do?
I am sick and tired of people who think things are free here. I work hard for what I have and I did not contribute to needing bail out money. Why should I have to pay for rich Democrats and wall street greed. People who fall for Obama’s explanation of how money is evil ask him to show us his assets and all the other self richeous democrats who preach republicans are evil because they have money.
In what way do you intend to hold Congress accountable for their failures?
Paul Krugman is an economic sociopath!
Resorting to name calling when you can’t rebut an argument? How juvenile.
I know you are, but what am I?
Your reply is the sort we need. Call out your own as quickly as you do the opposition when they start chasing squirrels (backyard cleaning), and you will see a new day in America. I must emphasize that you call out the opposition though. The RNC had it’s rear handed to it this election cycle not because conservative views and tenants are outdated but because they failed to defend against the “Bush Lie” (“…told often enough and long enough becomes the truth) and they had no grassroots ground game. We need more focused folks like yourself! AXE
The Juvenile is in the Office of the President. Paul Krugman is Pro- communist left over from the cold war. How many minutes left on your Obama phone. Call Harry Reid for tips on name calling…… You Racist.
You know, I think chart-reading has changed since I last had to do it in any important capacity or something.
” What does this chart show? It notes that as a share of the economy, total American government spending surpasses that which took place in World War II. And it’s been getting worse since President Bush took office, but really took off in 2009, when the effects of TARP, the auto bailouts, and other Bush and Obama policies were implemented to “save” the economy.”
And yet, at the end of the chart, where you would find the years 2009 and 2010, the spending as a % of GDP is headed downward. How is it that you interpret the decrease of spending as taking off?
the dumbing down of America was done by the dems to make them easy to fool, they wont beleave even with proof, and live in happy fairy land, fact is there are people who dont care how nice you are ,they want what you have and will lie to you or kill you to get it, wise up you stupid dems, this is the real world and the dems are the bad guys
Although I agree with some of your points, you sound like the one being “dumbed down” when you can’t even spell correctly. It’s believe, not “beleave.” And for Heaven’s sake, put apostrophies where needed – won’t not “wont”. If you want to sound smart, then type smart and don’t make it look like you only made it to the 3rd grade. That’s what makes the rest of us look bad.
May I suggest a more gentle approach? What you just did isn’t going to help any more than he’s refusal to use spell check and to type in complete English. You are just as much of a representative of your cause as he is. Thanks, AXE
LOL. Did you write that to be humorous?
Why argue over delusions, smarts or spelling. The chart shows we’re spending more than we make…and the pattern of over-spending has been going on for years with no sign of abating.
Think about it this way…what happens to you personally when you continuously spend more than you make? How it ends isn’t pretty. After every source of additional money has been scraped together & when even that is not enough to pay off the debts, creditors take possession of everything you own.
Same thing will happen to the country.
High number badder than bigger number. Arrarrrarrrrrrarrrrr
Simple chart, simple conclusion. The government, like a fire, is burning out of control and Obama keeps adding gasoline, swell. Note, our government makes no food, no clothing, and no shelter in this country. For the most part it has become just an ego driven contemptable organizational of dross and slag, sustained by an endless system of politically adept entitlements and theft, where any sophomore college math student could model where this is going. Based on revenues, we are already well past the Laffer curve tipping point. So, if you like traffic court medicine and justice, if you prefer a singularly dark monochromatic mission statement and Godless, anything goes philosophy full of political murders, vile class hatreds and vibrantly extolled virtues of expediency, state hubris, and self proclaimed state importance, vs. morality and myriad choices, mission statements, pension plans, systems of order, benefits, philosophies, goods, services, and religions offered by millions of DIFFERENT corporations and organizations, so be it. But don’t call me when your entire life is wasted to pay for some cruise missile fired at the whim of our UN or NATO “enlightened” President, as mere socialist largesse against some moderate Arab leader or non-believer. And may G̶o̶d̶ the state help you if your family ceases to believe in the state. OMG The Hitler’s, Stalin’s, Castro’s, Chavez’s, and Obama’s of the world don’t take that any too kindly!
We have gone through one of the worst recessionary periods in generations and some people are surprised revenue of governments have gone in the tank since 2007?
And social payments from government programs like food stamps have gone up since that time?
Really, it is just amazingly awesome people write this stuff. Or become deficit hawks when Dems are in control and not when Republicans are in power.
Our current “recession” was created by Congress, the Federal Reserve and the GSEs (Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Government revenues have actually gone up in absolute terms, they’ve only gone down as a percentage of GDP, it’s just that government spending has gone up even faster, and programs like food stamps and unemployment payments are a drop in the spending bucket.
People who have Tea Party principles were deficit hawks when Bush was President too. That’s really obvious if you notice the “Constitutional limited government and fiscal responsibility” theme.
Absolutely correct. I remember when Rush was ripping Bush for his spending on No Child, the bailout, the Rx drug (I almost wrote “dung”) plan, I thought “Bush could be the worst Republican president since Lincoln”.
Lincoln ruined this country!!!! Tea partiers unite!!
Let’s add some facts to your post….
The Republicans turned over to the Democrats all the purse strings of the federal government in January, 2007. When the Republicans turned total control of spending over to the Democrats, the deficit was a declining 0.16 (that’s zero point one six) trillion dollars DURING A WAR. When the Republicans turned total control of spending over to the Democrats, the total public debt was 5 trillion dollars.
What did the Democrats do with the deficit since January, 2007?
Did you say they increased the deficit ONE THOUSAND FIVE HUNDRED PERCENT?
What did the Democrats do with the debt since January, 2007?
Did you say they MORE THAN TRIPLED the debt to the 16 trillion dollars it is today?
Before you post, please acquaint yourself with some facts about government spending. If you learn the facts, you won’t appear to be such an indoctrinated dupe here when you post.
The national debt in 2007 was not 5 trillion it was 8-9 trillion.
http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/histdebt/histdebt_histo5.htm
You can blame the Dems all you want but the truth is War is expensive.
Rusty – They use the same math as Karl Rove to make them feel better for losing the election. Just like how all the polls were wrong and the Republicans were going to win in a landslide.
Well, let’s say 8 to 9 trillioni.
http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/fed_spending_2007USrn
Instead of tripling the debt, the Democrats merely doubled it.
Deficit for 2007 was 160 billio dollars, during a war.
Democrats take over all government spending.
Deficit for 2008 tripled to 480 billion dollars.
Deficit for 2009 tripled again to 1.41 trillion dollars.
The deficit under the Democrats has remained 1.3 to 1.4 trillion dollars since.
The Democrats haven’t even produced a budget since Obama took office.
It seems the economic plan for the Democrats relies on the notion that money grows on trees.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out we’re on the road to oblivion.
DB! You’re so full of it! But we love you. You are the Tea Party’s own worst enemy. So please keep writing.
Could you point to your data sources? It always makes for a more solid argument. Thanks, AXE
http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/fed_spending_2007USrn
This is a 2007 govt spending link not 2007 national debt.
If you use the tabs in the referenced link, you can see the spending, deficit and debt for every year up to the present. Just move your mouse and click. The information will magically appear in front of your eyes.
Yup eventually goes to the treasurydirect showing $8-9 trillion not $5 trillion.
By the way, it was the Democrats’ idiotic Marxist subprime housing mortgage underwriting program that collapsed our economy. Here is a link to a Wall Street Journal article giving quotes from Democrats when they were negotiating with the Republicans for no effective oversight of their ludicrous subpriime loan program.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122290574391296381.html
After the Republicans gave the Democrats no effective oversight of their lunatic subprime loan program, the Democrats gave the Republicans their support for the front in Iraq in the war the Islamist jihad started.
In January, 2007, the Democrats took over complete oversight of the institutions effecting the Democrats’ idiotic subprime housing loan program. After two years of oversight of these financial institutions by Democrats (Dodd and Frank), these financial institutions collapsed our economy.
Please associate some actual facts in history with your posts. What you write seems like something that happened on another planet.
Paul Krugman – Education – BA in Economics from Yale and PhD from MIT.
1. Nobel Prize for Economics 2008.
2. Winner of numerous other prestigious economic awards
3. Worked at the Reagan White House as a staff member of the Council of Economic Advisers.
4. Columnist for the New York Times.
5. Professor at Princeton, taught at Yale, Stanford and London School of Economics.
6. author of numerous economic textbooks studied at Universities.
Dustin Siggins – Education – BS in Business from Plymouth State University.
1. Blogger for Tea Party Patriots.
2. non staff member for The Heritage Foundation.
Let’s see….
Obama won a Nobel Peace Prize without ever having accomplished anything in his life other than being elected to some political office. So did that terrorist Yassar Arrafat. Nothing there that warrants credibility.
What economic awards, and for what? My dog gives economic awards to the other dogs in the neighborhood.
Would he have been one of those economic staffers in the Reagan White House that got fired?
New York Times? Can you reference some publication that didn’t get busted for winning a Pulitzer Prize for publishing fraudulent stories? The New York Times isn’t exactly what you would call credible.
He was a perfessor? I recall someone being put on the faculty at the University of Chicago Law School when the only experience they had in their resume was two stints as a summer intern and some work on something called “Project Vote”, and had never passed the bar exam, and had never even seen the inside fo a court room as a lawyer. That person was Barack Obama. Being named to some faculty at some so-called “progressive” university doesn’t automatically convey credibility.
What texts? What universities?
I suppose if the Democrats endorse his economic ideas, the crux of his economic philosophy is necessarily the concept that money grows on trees. Money growing on trees is the only way for the Democrats’ economic plan to work.
Paul Krugman – Liar and columnist for the NY Times. Oops! That’s redundant. Make that Liar and Keynesian socialist.
… and your point to the topic at hand is? pitiful ad hominem attack …
It seems. looking at the graph, the difference between spending and revenue created a deficit situation during the period when Reagan took us from the brink of defeat to victory in the Cold War, fighting the war the Arab jihad started on 9/11/2001 to an obvious point when the deficit was reduced to 160 billion dollars by a Republican-controlled Congress, and then the beginning of a huge deficit coincident with the Democrats taking control of all the purse strings of the government in January, 2007.
How do you explain that?
We were at the brink of losing the Cold War to the Soviets? Seriously?
Yes. If you recall, the Democrats gave South Vietnam to the communists and the next front of the Cold War moved to Central America, when the Democrats engaged in sabotage of the United States again. The term “stagflation” emerged to describe our economy under the control of Democrats. We were in such a poor condition, countries like Iran pretended we didn’t have any standing in the world anymore, andticipating us losing the Cold War, and sacked our embassy and seized the diplomatic staff. Carter signed over the Panama Canal, removing the last military presence in Central America.
Our economy was in shambles, and we were dismantling our Armed Forces.
At this time the majority of Americans still loved the United States, but the entire country had been duped into thinking that was a very insignificant minority opinion. Under Reagan, the American people realized that the people who loved this country were actually a majority of the people, our military was rebuilt, the communists in Central America were defeated in spite of the Democrats’ effort to sabotage the United States, and ultimately it was the Soviet Union that had to dissolve to save its economy.
We were on the verge of that happening to us.
Read Krugman’s article then read Siggins article and you will see the difference. I have to agree with Krugman that Reagan was a Keynesian. Krugman in my opinion is quite a good economist and most of the World agrees.
Reagan’s primary goal was to win the Cold War. The spillover effect was the development of all the technology that made the dot-com boom possible. The difference isn’t in the economic philosophy. The difference is whom do you give the money to for development of future possibilities.
Reagan built the foundation for the dot-com boom.
Obama spent more money than was spent on the entire war in Iraq from the beginning in 2003 through the end of 2010, and we got exactly nothing for it. Porkulus was a big ripoff by the Democrat cronies.
Reagan adhered to Thorstein Veblen’s ideas. Keynes is just another of those economic pundits that use the basic concept that it’s never anyone’s fault. If the economy stagnates, it’s just the cycles. If the economy moves forward, then the president is smarter than Keynes. That is the height of economic ignorance.
So you never answered the questioned. When was the US was on the brink of losing the Cold War? What technology did Reagan develop in the 80′s responsible for the dot com boom? If you are referring to the internet it was developed in the 70′s.
This article talks about huge entitlement programs we must worry about. However, a good percentage of the TP itself is part of this entitlement sector of the population. Have you been to a Tea Party rally? Many are collecting Social Security and Medi-Care.
And many TP members recognize that the SS and medicare programs should have been dealt with by congress in the 1960′s and 1970′s when the warnings about bankruptcy to the programs in the 2020′s were first being widely publicized. Government kicked the can down the road and continues to do so. As many of us are now retiring, we STILL believe they should be reformed. The so called privatized option has been vilified, yet it was not too long ago when many in government were in that option as it was recognized as the best vehicle to retirement. As MANY non government workers started to ask “why can’t the rest of us take advantage and opt out of the broken SS system,” then the government ended this option for government workers to save their cash cow of SS taxes. This vilification is not justified but the fear mongering keeps reform from benefitting the people.
The Republicans allowed the Democrats to use the Social Security money to fund their social programs. They allowed the Democrats to use all the money in Social Security, but pay the Social Security benefits out of the general fund. What has happened is the Democrats have turned Social Security into a catch-all welfare program.
We need to separate Social Security from welfare, as it was intended to be an was until Lyndon Johnson and the Democrats hijacked it to fund their “Great Society”.
It’s simple to fix Social Security.
IF YOU DIDN’T PAY INTO SOCIAL SECURITY, YOU DON”T GET ANYTHING FROM SOCIAL SECURITY.
Now that we’ve fixed Social Security, what other problem do you have?
I am really sick and tired of hearing about Social Security and Medicare as being “entitlements”, they are really bought and paid for benefits, that we as taxpayers have funded. Brief history will tell you that President Johnson and the Democrat congress took Social Security out of the lock box and made it available for ‘investment’. Then President Jimmy made it available to non U.S. citizens. All of this was then compounded by President Clinton and his right hand man to make it 85% taxable. Yes Mr. Global Warming himself cast the deciding vote. It’s no wonder that a lot of the Tea Party people are seniors, they form a part of the population that has seen it all before, it may be time for you know it all folks wake up to reality. My take is that the Democrats need to cut spending. Ask yourself this one question,,,, “Is it possible to spend your way out of debt?”
shut up