who spent the most Archives

Debunking The Fox And Limbaugh Lie Machine

I like the way Dave Johnson started his article on this subject.

He gathered the following three charts from the Budget of the United States Government: Historical Tables Fiscal Year 2012, and advised us that the next time “your right-wing brother-in-law” who “…is plugged into the FOX-Limbaugh Lie Machine, and keeps sending you emails about “Obama spending” and “Obama deficits” and how the “Stimulus” just made things worse…”, these are the charts you should show him.

Keep your fingers crossed and hope for the best. Although you will be presenting that person with the facts, the FOX-Limbaugh Lie Machine is very effective. Most, subjected to their daily dose of lies, don’t even know they’re infected.

Here goes!

Chart 1 – Spending

Under George Bush, spending increased by 88%.
Under Barack Obama, spending increased by 7.2%. Yet, this President is being blamed by the right for massive spending.

Chart 2 – Deficit

On the left of this chart, we see Bush increases the deficit by $1.4 trillion. This was after taking office with a $128 billion surplus from his predecessor, Bill Clinton.
On the right of this chart, we see Barack Obama temporarily increasing the deficit, mainly because when he came into office, George Bush’s fiscal policies were still in effect. For the remaining years of Obama’s term/s, deficit projection is expected to be at reduced levels, as compared to that of Bush.

Chart 3 – The Stimulus

This one is so simple, even Fox dedicated viewers could see what’s happening. When George Bush left office, as shown in the red, his policies caused a consistent job loss in the private market every month. After Obama took office, and after signing the stimulus into law, the blue lines shows fewer and fewer monthly job loss, eventually resulting in job gains. And as the chart says, July marked the 17th consecutive month of private sector job growth under President Obama.

But then again, if your brother-in-law is already brainwashed by the FOX-Limbaugh Lie Machine, charts like this showing the truth are not what he’s looking for. For him, it may already be too late. But try anyway.

Bush Vs. Obama – Who Spent The Most

A new report from the New York Times attempts to answer the questions – how did our economy get to this point? And where did this massive deficit come from? The report took the spending habits of the last president, and compared them to those of President Obama, from his inauguration in 2009 and projected through 2017, and interestingly, despite what Republicans and Conservatives think, George Bush still out-spent Barack Obama by more than 2 to 1.

When President Clinton left office in 2001, George Bush inherited a surplus, one that was projected to be over a trillion dollars for the next decade if the Clinton policies remained in effect. The chart below, which took information from The Congressional Budget Office and The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, tells the story of George Bush and his spending ways, and how he turned a surplus into a deficit beginning in 2002, and how that deficit grew each year until he left office in 2009.

The Bush wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, along with Defense – $1.5 Trillion added to the deficit.
The Bush Tax Cuts – $1.8 Trillion added to the deficit.
Non-Defense Discretionary spending under George Bush – $608 Billion added to the deficit.
Bush Tarp and other Bailouts – $224 Billion added to the deficit.
Bush’s Medicare Drug Policies – $180 Billion added to the deficit.
Bush’s Stimulus and other spending – $773 Billion added to the deficit.

All in all, George Bush took an actual surplus of $127 billion in 2001 and turned it into a deficit of $319 billion in 2005. His total in new spending equaled over $5 trillion. This figure dwarfs the $1.44 trillion in new spending President Obama is expected to make through two terms ending in 2017.

It should be noted that the biggest spending spree George Bush and the Republicans went on, according to these figures from the Congressional Budget Office, was the Bush Tax Cuts. The New York Times report puts it this way; “If all of them [Bush Tax Cuts] expired as scheduled at the end of 2012, future deficits would be cut by about half, to sustainable levels”.