Another GOP myth debunked: Obama’s excessive spending (not!)

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

I am convinced that the GOP gets away with this myth-making only because the vast majority of Americans are: (1) terrible at math, and (2) know little or nothing about economics. Low information voters are going to be the death of us all.

As Tea-Publicans tell this tall tale, President Obama is "spend, spend, spending" this country into economic ruin. One of the favorite bumper sticker slogans of these simpletons is "stop the spending."

Steve Benen posts today, The spending surge that never happened:

The notion that federal spending soared after President Obama took office is one of those "facts" that the political world just accepts implicitly. Republicans have repeated the claim so often (and so loudly) that it's no longer even questioned. Indeed, Mitt Romney promises to "stop the excessive overspending" on a nearly daily basis.

But MarketWatch's Rex Nutting took a closer look at the assumption that many assume is true, but isn't. (The MarketWatch piece included this great chart, too.)

Government spending under Obama, including his signature stimulus bill, is rising at a 1.4% annualized pace — slower than at any time in nearly 60 years.

But it didn't happen. Although there was a big stimulus bill under Obama, federal spending is rising at the slowest pace since Dwight Eisenhower brought the Korean War to an end in the 1950s…. There has been no huge increase in spending under the current president, despite what you hear.

It matters, of course, that a political myth is accepted as fact, especially when it's likely to be one of the driving messages of the 2012 campaign.

But let's also keep in mind that this has dramatic policy implications: the fact that the economic recovery is so weak and fragile has nothing to do with the debt and everything to do with not enough capital in the system, leading to too little demand.

In other words, the fact that spending growth under Obama has been so slow is practically a form of austerity, and it's bad for the economy, not good.

The biggest offenders, of course, were Saint Ronnie Reagan who quadrupled the national debt, and George W. Bush who doubled it again.

Willard "Mittens" Romney is promising to return to the economic policies of George W. Bush "on steroids." Off the Charts Blog | Center on Budget and Policy Priorities | Romney’s Budget Proposals Would Require Massive Cuts in Medicare and Othwr Programs:

If policy­makers exempted Social Security from the cuts, as Governor Romney has suggested, and cut Medicare, Medicaid, and all other entitlement and discretionary programs by the same percentage, then nondefense programs other than Social Security would have to be cut 29 percent in 2016 and 59 percent in 2022. 

The cuts that would be required under the Romney budget proposals in programs such as veterans’ disability compensation, Supple­mental Security Income for poor elderly and disabled individuals, SNAP (formerly food stamps), and child nutrition programs would move millions of households below the poverty line or drive them deeper into poverty.  The cuts in Medicare and Medicaid would make health insurance unaffordable (or unavailable) to tens of millions of people.  The cuts in non­defense discretionary programs — which include a wide variety of public services such as elemen­tary and secondary education, law enforcement, veterans’ health care, environmen­tal protection, and biomedical research — would come on top of the deep cuts in this part of the budget that are already in law due to the discretionary funding caps established in last year’s Budget Control Act.

Governor Romney’s cuts would be substantially deeper than those required under the austere House-passed budget plan authored by Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI).  Over the 2014-2022 period, Romney would require $7 trillion to $10 trillion in cuts to programs other than Social Security and defense.

The magical, mythical tax revenue increases that supposedly result from cutting taxes to top income earners. i.e., faith based supply-side "trickle down" GOP econonics, never happened and will never happen. Just as under George W. Bush, federal deficits will soar under Willard "Mittens" Romney's economic policies of George W. Bush "on steroids."

Much of the fault for the persistence of these myths are the feckless corporate media villagers who never challenge Tea-Publicans with the facts when they speak nonsense, often mindlessly repeating these GOP myths themselves, and rarely ever fact checking any myths, as above. Corporate media villagers are just as (1) terrible at math, and (2) know little or nothing about economics as average Americans. The blind are leading the blind into economic ruination.

UPDATE: Jamelle Bouie at the Plum Line makes the same points. The Myth of Obama's Spending Binge:

The simple fact is that there is no data to support the Obama “spending binge” of Republican rhetoric.

-and-

[By Contrast] the Romney budget outline — if implemented in full — would be a disaster for the federal budget. It would require either deep cuts to existing social programs or tremendous deficits.

UPDATE: White House Press Secretary Jay Carney, during a press gaggle with reporters on Air Force One on Wednesday, alerted the press corps to a new story reiterating the point that President Obama has actually demonstrated unusual fiscal restraint, and warned them that uncritically reporting GOP tax-and-spend claims to the contrary amounts to “BS” and a sign of “sloth and laziness.” Got that right! h/t Talkingpointsmemo.com.