The Chart Krugman and Obama Don’t Want You to See
January 1, 2013 at 12:03 pm in News by Tea Party Patriots 26 Comments
With Christmas and New Year’s upon us, the National Support Team of Tea Party Patriots is taking some time to be with our families and clear our heads of politics, barring any major legislation passing through Congress. Please enjoy these posts from the last few months – a Best of Tea Party Patriots, if you will. Below is the ninth post, which looks at how – contrary to what many proponents of big government claim – government spending continues to rise, even though the recession is three-and-a-half years over.
The Chart Krugman and Obama Don’t Want You to See
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.
God Bless the Tea Party Patriots, Thanks for your support of God and our Country and the good work you do. Truth will prevail and we are taking many adverse effects in our freedoms, our economy and the fundamental re-distribution of wealth. We must believe that we can fight evil and ungodliness in 2013 and the next 4 years. Happy New Year.
Homer,
You have good thoughts. Happy New Year for you and yours.
I wonder if we can even find a polition with the intectual honesty to tell the people that the dream of entitlement is inherently afoul of a nation of free people. Govenor Walker of Wisconsin tread dangerously close to the truth, with the one group of people who are 100% college educated responding by takeing to the streets and defaceing the statehouse, a sobering thought, being that group is entrusted with teaching the children to read, write, and cipher.
Politician, not polition,
Loon,
I wonder why anyone with ethics would venture into politics. The profession seems to corrupt or make impotent even the most ardent idealists. I speak primarily of those not term limited. As far as teachers go, I still don’t fear their influence over our children. While academia is saturated with a liberal mindset, healthy parental relationships outweigh professorial indoctrination. Although it was a challenge for our family, even my gay son has retained his familial ethics. However, I do agree with the gist of your comments. We need to reform our political and educational leadership. We can no longer afford, financially nor morally, to ignore these two venerable institutions.
Teaparty members are the white folks who like their medicare purchased motorized scooters.
And you Klabo, must be a Liberal hater who likes his Welfare goodies paid for by those who actually work.
Sincerely
A white folk who has no motorized scooter.
That is a very racist comment to make. At least you could deal with the issues. One of them is medicare. The spending in this nation is out of control regardless of race, age, or any other factor, this chart highlights this. We cannot continue to “give” free stuff away. It will stop one way or another.
1. The population of the US returns to it’s core principles which si not about entitlements or handouts or 2. We become fiscally insolvent and it is not possible to continue to do so. For those receiving these benefits what will they do when they go away, abruptly and unexpectedly? I think a better approach is to gradually reduce them and assist people to become more constructive parts of society. Not to leave them dependent and in bondage to a welfare state that is destined to fail if it does not alter it’s course.
Klabo,
Since you have not shown any evidence to support your assertion, what’s your point? As written, your comment is nothing more than evidence of your myopic bigotry. Please go away and come back when you’ve done a little work on your communicative skills.
Klabo Ninyak- that’s a Ubesi name isn’t it? A pretty small tribe if I remember right…
Jeff what is your point and how is it relative to the discussion?
TEA Party members are the people who pay for everything you have, in addition to what it cost them to pay for their own subsistence. Without the TEA Party, the government has no revenue, and you have nothing more than you would have if you lived in a village in Nigeria run by an egomaniacal chief who steals everything the village generates.
Good job being utterly false. I’m not sure if you’re ignorant or a liar. The premise is so absurd I assume the latter, but for your sake I hope the former.
If I may opine that money is a means of exchange of value, that goods are sold and that the value of services pertainant to the goods are attached to the sale price of the goods. The geezer on his motorized scooter may very well have been a hardworking soul who paid his taxes with honest labor. As to color, being a well traveled geezer, I can attest to a lot of other colored folks who also provided honest labor. So, we figure that if we don’t get what we want we can use the government to steal it for us? Remember, you hire a thief, the thief eats first.
After a cursory study of Obama, I made this prediction on the day after Super Tuesday, 2008:
“If Obama wins the election, we will see a horde of thieves descend upon Washington that will surpass any previous administration in the history of the United States.”
Does anyone doubt this has happened?
“If Obama wins the election, we will see a horde of thieves descend upon Washington that will surpass any previous administration in the history of the United States.” – me, the day after Super Tuesday, 2008.
Does anyone doubt this has happened?
Klabo Binyak, no hope for you! Obviously your brain does not function in reality. Too bad.
It’s interesting how you post a graph that shows divergence growing as soon as Reagan and Bush take office and shrinking as soon as Clinton and Obama take office, and then say it supports a completely opposite premise. And you wonder where the Tea Party gets its reputation for caring more about ideology than facts? No wonder the movement is dying. People are waking up to the fact that they’ve been duped into electing lobbyists. Why manipulate a congressperson when you can be one?
Jason It seems to me this is not a “R” vs “D” thing or a conservative or liberal thing short of Paul Krugman claiming that gov’t spending has gone down and it clearly has not. It seems that the real problem this charts highlights is that Gov’t spending as a percentage of GDP has been going up since the great depression. This was the beginning of our financial woes, at some point it will be unsustainable.
This is absolutely being promoted as pro-conservative and anti-liberal. If you’re unaware of that all you have to do is read the headline. Typical… this is how corporate shills pretending to be activists and politicians do their business… misinformation. In any case, if you want to see more of the downward sloping line and less of the upward sloping line, you might want to heed the chart. The last three downward slopes line up with Carter, Clinton, and Obama. The last two large gaps grew under Reagan and Bush. Furthermore, in my view there’s nothing at all wrong with 30% in this day and age. People want services and are willing to pay for them. It’s just the Tea Party who wants to gut government services to their own detriment because they’re utterly brainwashed by the false rhetoric and symbolism of their corporate propaganda masters.
JasonC, when I consider they are a party at war with science, I would be surprised if they accepted mainstream economics. You have to go back to Galileo to find a significant Western political leadership so at odds with objectivity.
It is Economics 101 that you don’t cut government spending during a recession. Krugman’s latest article relates a recent IMF study showing that the harm caused by austerity during a recession is even greater than previously believed.
We got in this deficit mess when president Bush fought two wars simultaneously while cutting taxes, wrecking the balanced budget inherited from Clinton. Recall too that Reagan’s budget director Davis Stockman leaked how Republicans run deficits on purpose to undermine the programs the overwhelming majority of the American desire government to carry out. Seems the Tea Party deficit hawks should be supporting Democrats.
Those in the tea Part who oppose science and economics complain they’re not being listened to in Washington. If that’s true, it only reflects how small they are in number and how little support they have among average Americans. That’s how it works in a democratically elected government.
JasonC
Wow, So you are saying those that the Tea Party are “utterly brainwashed by the false rhetoric and symbolism of their corporate propaganda masters”. That seems like a gross simplification and over generalization of the problem, not to mention a bit paranoid ( ok really paranoid). Seems kind of strange that the corporate propaganda masters would add relevancy to your point Instead of fudging the chart to prove themselves righteous and beyond reproach. Hmm I guess that shows us the state of corporate America these days. Wait! what?
But you are entitled to your opinion while this is still a free country. (For now)
Jimmy Carter really? Look at the chart most of the reduction was done during Ford’s two years in office. Although in fairness it did not seem to increase much during his term either. (Despite the fact that he is a rabid anti-semite)
Ronald Reagan although I believe he was a great statesman and a patriot (not a bad thing) never balanced the budget whilst in office it is a simple fact, I may have had to do with a democratic majority in congress pushing bigger government during his first term and his own agenda to bring down communism (neither are cheap in cost)..
Bill Clinton … well look to Tim Cases post for the answer there.
Both the first and second Bush increased debt yes they did especially by “HW” cutting spending was almost a four letter word but I don’t think he really had any interest in reducing spending anyway.
Clearly there is a massive disparity shortly after Obama not the reduction you claim (are we looking at the same chart? Must be the brainwashing!)
Current entitlement programs have to be cut because it is simply not within our ability to sustain them. Realistically wee can’t bring military spending to $0 if we are going to provide for the national defense (kinda important). Sure we could cut a portion of our military spending then what? What programs do we cut? Who decides what goes and what stays? (So far no one because these programs are not being cut they are being expanded!)
This is not an “R” and “D” issue it is irrelevant to the fact that we all continue to be impacted.by this illness in our government. This chart shows clearly that since the great depression (not the evil Bush years), the money being consumed by the government has skyrocketed.
It does not matter who is trying to make this a partisan issue because it isn’t. Sure there are many factors involved, everyone has a part in this, no one is innocent or immune. Pork barrel spending and gerrymandering are a problem but not with the politicians as much as it is with the people. No self respecting citizen of this nation should allow themselves to be bought off. That reduces our citizenship to a commodity with a price tag and it is deplorable.
Our government continues to become larger and larger. That in and of itself although I personally disagree with it is not even the core of the problem. The debt that is being created for the functions our government is currently trying to perform are not sustainable. To actually fund the current programs without creating debt the numbers taxes would almost double for the same programs does that sound appealing? Of course not. So we reduce the military how about that and have a 45% tax instead? Still does not sound good to me.
So we don’t go to war again. (That will work cause all the bad guys will just leave us alone until we get the financial issues worked out) but that still is not enough and we don’t reduce spending for entitlement programs, so it goes on and the continual increase in debt and need to print money to support that debt devalue our currency thus our dollars buy less and we also keep a lower percentage of our income because of the tax increases. The recipients of said benefits get to enjoy a benefit that has less and less purchasing power thus not actually reducing poverty but increasing it. We all get to share in a huge burden of debt whether we acknowledge it or not. I don’t know about you but that still seems worse to me.
You mentioned “People want services and are willing to pay for them.” I am not willing to pay for them I don’t wan’t them and I did not ask for them, I am not alone in this, the corporate propaganda masters agree).
What seems better to me is not try and force us to be the world police and in turn not to mandating social programs either.
Now before you go there I don’t want Grandmas to die, quite the contrary, I am confident many more effective options can be found to help others than the government trying to mandate it. Charity dictated by force is not Charity it is taxation.
The youth of our nation are forced to pay a tax for the misappropriation of funds from social security by our politicians that did not happen because of the “D” or the “R” parties alone they operated in collusion to do this. We penalize our youth for the crimes of the political elite. They have to pay for the benefits of people that paid into the system all their life, Social Security is not an insurance as it was touted for decades it is a tax plain and simple.
The person that will spend my money I earn most responsibly is me. I can find organizations that will ensure a greater percentage of the money I donate actually helps those in need. Why can’t I choose for myself who, how and when I decide to do so? (Spoken like a true corporate lemming!)
JasonC
Examine OMB table 3.1 Federal Receipts and Outlays and observe the following:
The modest reductions in outlay increases and the surpluses thereby created during the Clinton administration correspond to Republican control of Congress. Clinton asserted on several occasions that the budget could not be balanced for years, but the surpluses ocurred within three years of Republican control of Congress.
In the first full year (2009) of Obama’s administration, Fed outlays increased from 23.2% of GDP to 27.5%. The decline you tout has been from 27.5 to 26.1 (2010), and a slight rise back to 26.8% of GDP.
You think thirty percent of GDP should be controlled by the Federal Government? The historical average of Federal outlays is 8.3%. Precisely how does “this day and age” differ from those of the past?
People want services, but want other people to pay for them. That is the principle of the progressive tax system. The Federal government spends 15,000 dollars per adult per year, but the bottom 10% of earners pay an average of only 283 dollars per year in Federal income taxes.
“Gutting government services” will do me no detriment.
Free yourself from your “corporate propaganda masters”, CNN, MSNBC, and PBS (the Corporation for Public Broadcasting).
Yesterday (Monday) conservative pollster Rasmussen revealed just how unpopular the Tea Party has become. A paltry 8% of Americans now identify themselves with the movement, and over 2/3rds view it unfavorably. The American people have grasped the genuinely tragic truth of the devolution of the Tea Party into just another bought and paid for corporatist tool of groups like Americans For Prosperity, FreedomWatch, and other heavily-funded mouthpieces for the fossil fuel industry.
Tea Party’s pro-pollution, pro-corporate handout policies make sense only when viewed in the light of who funds and organizes the movement. They organize events so they local and spontaneous, when in truth, they are actually run by these lobbyist-run think tanks (Imho, the scam began to unravel when Freedom Works was caught planting one of its operatives as a “single mom” to ask questions to President Bush in a town hall on the subject).
Then the Wall Street Journal, hardly a liberal bastion, exposed Freedom Works for building “amateur-looking” websites to promote the lobbying interests of Dick Armey, the former Republican Majority Leader and (now) former head Freedom Works (big rat deserting sinking ship?).
Americans for Prosperity is funded by Koch Family Foundations — a family whose wealth is derived from the oil industry. Americans for Prosperity has coordinated pro-drilling ‘grassroots‘ Tea Party-related events around the country.
Then there’s ultimate Tea Party facilitator, Fox News, the only major news organization to have been caught lying so many times that it’s no longer scandalous, no longer funny, just a shameful fact of American life.
The writing is on the wall. Americans are progressives, and believe there is an important role for government in protecting Americans from corporate greed.
As comments are now moderated, I suspect the last critical truth about the Tea Party has been posted here.
Comments have been moderated thw whole time what is your point?