Ebenezer Obama Praises Himself

Recently President Obama has been declaring himself to be a fiscal conservative. Responding to Republican nominee-presumptive Mitt Romney calling administration economics “a prairie fire of debt,” John Maynard Obama responded with “He left out some facts—what my opponent didn’t tell you was that federal spending since I took office has risen at the slowest rate of any president in almost sixty years.”

In your guts, you know he’s nuts. That’s an obvious lie, and it is accompanied by some very high-level chutzpah. Seeking to divert your lying eyes from the obvious, Obama mouthpiece Jay Carney expanded on the theme: “To make the point, as an editor might say, reporters should not buy into the b.s. that you hear about spending and fiscal constraint with regard to this administration. I think it’s a sign of sloth and laziness.” That’s the administration’s way of saying that what is obvious to anyone with an IQ above room temperature isn’t true.

Obama has gathered together his team of economics “experts” to perform one of the biggest con jobs in history. You’ve undoubtedly heard Obama and his minions talking about how responsible his spending has been in comparison with previous presidents. And though you’ve likely simply ignored the enormous foolishness of it all, you’ve probably wondered where he comes up with such blatant distortion of facts. Well, let me give you a hint. Ever heard “figures don’t lie, but liars can figure?”

Step one: Blame all of your first year spending on George W. Bush, reserving only a piddling $140 billion as your own. Easily enough done, if you have no conscience. The fiscal year of Obama’s first year in office ended on October 1, 2009. So Obama’s experts claim that he had no control over spending before that date. Now you also have to ignore the $800 billion stimulus that Obama and the Democrats passed in February of that year because it didn’t actually kick in fully until after the end of the fiscal year. So the calculation Obama includes in his current lie about fiscal restraint uses a baseline figure for 2009 which is almost entirely attributable to him but which he blames on his predecessor.

Step Two: Use dollars spent by the federal government without any reference to the national economy, while still blaming Bush indirectly for most of the spending since 2009, . That way you can claim a “rate” of spending that is “fake but accurate.” If you ignore the gross domestic product, population increases, more people on the public dole and wildly divergent views of inflation, it’s possible to spend trillions of extra dollars while claiming the rate of increase over three and a half years is low. In 1983, the highest previous spending year, the US was spending 23.5% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for all federal programs, including revitalization of America’s degraded military capabilities. How does that stack up with Obama’s federal chunk of the GDP? 2009: 25.2%; 2010: 24.1%; 2011: 24.1% and for 2012, an estimated 24.3%.

Those differences may not seem like much until you take into account the other facts. Removing 1983, rates have ranged from 18% to 21% between 1984 and 2008. And the 500 pound gorilla in the room is the GDP itself. First, much of the decrease in spending in 2012 will be attributed to cuts to the military which are the opposite of what happened in 1983. And more importantly, the GDP itself has been hugely reduced by the recession which seems interminable under Obama. Simply put, 24.1% federal spending against a sick GDP is one helluva lot more than 23.5% of a GDP that had taken off for the stratosphere.

Democrats pay the latter fact quick lip service, hoping you won’t see that it is a major factor in determining spending as a relative component of the overall economy. Their argument is that the economy stinks, so federal spending looks larger as a percentage of GDP. No, it is a larger percentage. And that bumps up against Obama’s argument that his fiscal policies ended the recession back in mid-2009. If the current economy stinks, then who care whether it’s technically a recession or not? And what about this simple figure: at the end of 2008 public debt stood at 40.5% of the economy (still too high) but now stands at 74.2% and getting worse?

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how liars figure. If simple, honest accounting doesn’t work for you, come up with some devious creative accounting to make your profligacy look like fiscal restraint. The next time your innate good sense says that Obama is outright lying about curbing federal spending, go with your instincts. They’re correct.