The CBO put the deficit for the just ended fiscal year at 2.4% of GDP, below 50-year average.
“Big government and debt doubled under a Republican junta,”
2016 Republican pretender candidate Paul said. “And it’s
now tripling under Barack Obama’s watch.”
Those are some scary words, and they feed the willfully ignorant
frenzy driving Republicans to refuse to raise the debt ceiling. That and
their failure to understand what the debt ceiling actually is.
As we head into yet another Republican cabal shutdown showdown allegedly over
Republicans unwillingness to pay off the debt they’ve already spent,
it’s worth noting reality for a moment. The
Congressional Budget Office put
the deficit for the just ended fiscal year at 2.4% of GDP, below
50-year average, and also, 2015 was the sixth consecutive year in which
the deficit declined as a percentage of GDP.
The federal government ran a budget deficit of $435 billion fiscal year
2015, CBO estimates—$48 billion less than the shortfall recorded in
fiscal year 2014, and the smallest deficit recorded since 2007. Relative
to the size of the economy, that deficit—at an estimated 2.4 percent of
gross domestic product (GDP)—was slightly below the average experienced
over the past 50 years, and 2015 was the sixth consecutive year in
which the deficit declined as a percentage of GDP since peaking at 9.8
percent in 2009. By CBO’s estimate, revenues were about 8 percent higher
and outlays were about 5 percent higher in 2015 than they were in the
previous fiscal year. CBO’s deficit estimate is based on data from the
Daily Treasury Statements; the Treasury Department will report the
actual deficit for fiscal year 2015 later this month.
We can’t have an honest discussion about the deficit without
noting
that “the FY2009 federal deficit was running at a rate of $1.2 trillion
on the day he (President Obama) took office in the midst of a financial
crisis.”
Also, Factcheck continued (note this was written in 2014):
But a fact that may surprise Obama’s critics is that Obama’s spending
increases have been historically modest — much smaller than his
predecessor’s, and well below the rate of inflation. Federal spending in
the current fiscal year, which ends this month, is running only 7.9
percent higher than it was when the president took office. This increase
is well below the 12 percent rise in the Consumer Price Index, which
we’ve mentioned.
…
But the spending increase under Obama would be even lower — only 5.9
percent — if we used the most recent estimate of the nonpartisan
Congressional Budget Office from August 27. CBO puts the current year’s
outlays at just over $3.5 trillion. The final, actual spending figures
for this year should be announced sometime next month, and we’ll report
on them in our next update.
And right when I was about to credit Republican austerity for some of this:
To be sure, some of the spending restraint has been
forced on Obama by a Republican-controlled House of Representatives.
Even so, the contrast with the shrub junta’s spending increases
is quite dramatic. Federal outlays rose nearly 33 percent during the
first four fiscal years for which the shrub signed the appropriations bills
(FY2002 – 2005) and rose again by another 34 percent during the next
four fiscal years, even subtracting $203 billion from FY2009 to adjust
for Obama’s additions that year.
PolitiFact
checked Paul’s claim and found “Quite a few readers asked us if
the debt has tripled since Obama took office in January 2009. We took a
look at the numbers, and it hasn’t. It’s increased about 1.7 times.”
Want to know how Rand Paul’s “office” justified his claim? Watch the
shells move (my bold): “Looking at the whole statement — not just the
second clause — Paul wasn’t saying the debt has tripled under Obama
alone. Instead, he was saying that it doubled under the shrub. And
since Obama took office, it has risen to a point that is triple what it was when the shrub first stole the office. By this measure, Paul’s statement is closer to accurate. Let’s go through the numbers.”
Jobless claims also fell to near a 42-year low today, after the Department of Labor released their update:
In the week ending October 3, the advance figure for
seasonally adjusted initial claims was 263,000, a decrease of 13,000
from the previous week’s revised level. The previous week’s level was
revised down by 1,000 from 277,000 to 276,000. The 4-week moving average
was 267,500, a decrease of 3,000 from the previous week’s revised
average. The previous week’s average was revised down by 250 from
270,750 to 270,500.
So what we have here is a President who has set historic records for continuous private sector job growth,
has lowered spending increases dramatically – in fact they have been
“historically modest”, and the deficit for the just ended fiscal year is
at 2.4% of GDP, below 50-year average.
What’s it all mean? It means that President Obama is not the big
spender Republicans make him out to be, unless they really want to blame
him for picking up the tab for their 2007 financial crisis and the two
unfunded wars they started and put on a credit card. So when Republicans
talk about not raising the debt ceiling due to their objections to
“spending”, not only is this irresponsible because the money has already
been spent, but it’s irrational and ridiculous. For a big spender, see
Obama’s predecessor – the entitled “decider”.
In other words, President Obama is the only adult in the room.
![Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson appears on CNN on Sept. 14, 2015. [YouTube]](http://www.rawstory.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Ben-Carson-091415-478x257.jpg)
