Are Dems insane for vote for Obama again?

[zimmy]

Originally Posted by Jim in CT

He's been in office for 3.5 years. In that time, he added $5 trillion to he debt. In that time, unemployment is higher now than it was when he took office.

4/5 of the $5trillion is from policies enacted before he took office. Unemployment is higher, but job growth is about +1million per month



Spending was high when he took office. He would have had to made major cuts to change the deficit picture, cuts that couldn't be made because of two wars and a recession. Anyone who has a basic understanding of economics knows that spending cuts are the worst thing that can be done for an economy during a recession. For example, look up the jobs projections if the fiscal cliff deadline hits and the cuts are made. In any case, attributing the $5 trillion to him is either ignorance of the facts or intentional distortion of them

• In the 2009 fiscal year — the last of George W. Bush’s presidency — federal spending rose by 17.9% from $2.98 trillion to $3.52 trillion. Check the official numbers at the Office of Management and Budget.




• In fiscal 2010 — the first budget under Obama — spending fell 1.8% to $3.46 trillion.

• In fiscal 2011, spending rose 4.3% to $3.60 trillion.

• In fiscal 2012, spending is set to rise 0.7% to $3.63 trillion, according to the Congressional Budget Office’s estimate of the budget that was agreed to last August.

• Finally in fiscal 2013 — the final budget of Obama’s term — spending is scheduled to fall 1.3% to $3.58 trillion.
Obama spending binge never happened - MarketWatch

[buckman]

Originally Posted by zimmy

4/5 of the $5trillion is from policies enacted before he took office. Unemployment is higher, but job growth is about +1million per month



Spending was high when he took office. He would have had to made major cuts to change the deficit picture, cuts that couldn't be made because of two wars and a recession. Anyone who has a basic understanding of economics knows that spending cuts are the worst thing that can be done for an economy during a recession. For example, look up the jobs projections if the fiscal cliff deadline hits and the cuts are made. In any case, attributing the $5 trillion to him is either ignorance of the facts or intentional distortion of them

• In the 2009 fiscal year — the last of George W. Bush’s presidency — federal spending rose by 17.9% from $2.98 trillion to $3.52 trillion. Check the official numbers at the Office of Management and Budget.




• In fiscal 2010 — the first budget under Obama — spending fell 1.8% to $3.46 trillion.

• In fiscal 2011, spending rose 4.3% to $3.60 trillion.

• In fiscal 2012, spending is set to rise 0.7% to $3.63 trillion, according to the Congressional Budget Office’s estimate of the budget that was agreed to last August.

• Finally in fiscal 2013 — the final budget of Obama’s term — spending is scheduled to fall 1.3% to $3.58 trillion.
Obama spending binge never happened - MarketWatch

Obama had a budget???

[zimmy]

Originally Posted by buckman

Obama had a budget???

You do know who passes budgets don't you?

[Jim in CT]

Originally Posted by zimmy

job growth is about +1million per month



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Not for his entire term, it's not. Zimmy, it's easy to say there is job growth when you ignore the months in which there was no job growth, and only consider months when there was job growth.

The last few months have seen job growth, I get that. But you don't get to ignore the bad months. If we ignore the last 3 months of Bush's presidency, the economy look spretty damn awesome.

Some good points in that post, though, seriously...

[zimmy]

Originally Posted by Jim in CT

Not for his entire term, it's not. Zimmy, it's easy to say there is job growth when you ignore the months in which there was no job growth, and only consider months when there was job growth.

The last few months have seen job growth, I get that. But you don't get to ignore the bad months. If we ignore the last 3 months of Bush's presidency, the economy look spretty damn awesome.

Some good points in that post, though, seriously...

The comments prior to it were about today compared to "4 years ago". It isn't about ignoring bad months, it is about what things were like then and what they are like now. Then, the economy was dumping 800,000 jobs a month. The net difference today is about a million jobs a month better. The whole thing is sort of ridiculous. For example, ignoring Bush's last three months tells less of the story than attributing at least the first 6 months or so of 2009 to him. In that case, he should also get credit for some of the improvement in the jobs numbers because of TARP and some of the other things he did.