Lots of people complained about Bush's overspending. I am fond of Obama's complaint and pledge to cut the deficit in half be the end of his first administration.

"I refuse to leave our children with a debt they cannot repay," he said in remarks opening the one-day summit at the White House. "We cannot and will not sustain deficits like these without end. ... We cannot simply spend as we please."

I see the libtard chart factory is out in full force. Where did you get that thing?

The republicans also stopped his jobs bill ($540 billion) and wanted to stop some of his bullet train ideas, arts programs, post office boondoggle. The democrats all wanted the prescription drugs bills and even the tax cuts. Someone should keep track of all the bills that are killed and find out who killed them and add them to their column.

Someone should find out on an item by item basis to what they support and spend. It seems to me mainly it is the republicans that do all the austerity that leads to growth on the ticky tacky items (solyendra) while the republicans make one massive spending increase somewhere.

Just lol @ all this. So he makes a promise and because he not only didn't come close to living up to it, he did the exact opposite, you think it's OK to let him slide? Derp.

So called rise in massive spending, what are you talking about, TARP, auto bailouts, bank bail outs, Afghanistan, Solyndra, Stimulus, he'd never extend the Bush tax cuts cause that's part of what got us in this mess... oh wait.

And the graph is the same fail that Nuttings article is, placing stuff Obama singed into law under Bush, lol. Notice how that graph doesn't include when Obama extended the Bush tax cuts, hmmmm how did that happen. And lol @ projecting anything out to 2017 when Obamacare may not be around in ~ a month.

And a lot of people complained about Bush's spending and even if they didn't it's still the right argument to rail against Obama's massive spending, it just ironical if you liked Bush's and do not like Obama's not the wrong argument though, which people confuse all the time, irony/ being hypocritical with having the right side of an argument.

Bush ****ed up , and Obama is ****ing up when it comes to spending.

What? I guess the MSM just decided not to cover the Tea Party formation and protests about Bush's spending when he was in office.

Sigh, were you alive during the Bush administration and the 2004 election? The exploding debt was very much an issue. Here is a website discussing the various 2004 candidates approach to debt reduction.

http://www.watchblog.com/thirdparty/...es/000313.html

The Tea Party didn't form until Bush left, but there was plenty of conservative backlash against the spending of the Bush administration.

Interesting debate, who spent the most.

Personally, though, I prefer looking at debt.

Using the DEBT TO THE PENNY calculator from the Treasury, Obama has increased debt by less trhan 6% per year average over GWB's LAST YEAR, using Presidential time in office dates; Jan. 20, 2008-Jan. 19, 2009.

His last year Bush was 1,440,024 Trillion* (rounded off).

Using Jan. 20, 2009 - May 19,2012 Obama is averaging per year 1,526,000 per year (imn trillions) per year deby.

Less than a 6% growth per year average.

*TARP spending allocation of 700 Billion included.

Over his 8 years Bush averaged 612,638 billion per year (rounded).

Measured against this metric Obama is close to 2 1/2 x the debt spender.

I was watching the day Rick Santelli FIRST mentioned the words "Tea Party" on the floor of the CMC.

Later the same day I mentioned it to a few friends and said, WATCH OUT, this is gonna be big.

Here is a YouTube clip of the day, Feb. 19,2009.

This was all about bank bailouts and "Paying" for other peoples mortgages, ect.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcvSjKCU_Zo

obg

Wow! The revisionist history is really impressive these days.

The crux of the argument that Obama barely increased spending over Bush is almost entirely based on misrepresenting TARP.

First, TARP was a single bill on a one time authorization, like disaster relief. No one ever pitched TARP as a permanent increase to the deficit -- nor would it have ever passed if this were the expectation.

Second, Bush only used half of TARP and handed the other half to Obama should Obama want to use it. From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trouble...Relief_Program :
Now you might want to ask what Bush was doing with that second $350 billion. The answer? Nothing. Bush was no longer in office a week later.

Obama was sworn in and took the reins of this money for his own program:
I know there's a lot of effort to build the narrative that Obama isn't a big spender, but this would be like trying to argue the sun really isn't that hot. There's just way too much evidence to the contrary.

this. It's amazing how disappointing Obama has been when "Obama is only slightly worse than Bush" is supposed to be some winning arguement for his supporters.

TARP was basically nothing compared to the overall budget--a loss including the GM bailouts of about 30 something billion. (Please correct me if I'm wrong.)

The accounting of TARP--Spending listed under Bush, repayments listed under Obama--may have made Obama's spending look somewhat better, but it's not clear to me that repayments are even considered in the raw spending numbers.

Also, i find it a bit weird to complain that Bush authorized the money and Obama spent it. Budgets are about authorizing spending.

Trollscapades aside, there is a place in this discussion for the fact that there can be no political winner in the unemployment aspect of the debate.

You're wrong twice -- TARP = 700b and the GM bailouts came out of TARP.

No need to move the goalposts. We were talking about the spending, not the authorisation. Obama didnt have to spend a penny of that money if he didn't want to, it was entirely discretionary.

It's a supreme irony that Bush pushed for that authorisation as a gesture of good will and effective transition, then Obama (and obviously his allies) now proceed to claim that money against Bush.

That Bush wanted the world to see a peacefull transition of power is not goodwill. And the cash was probably as much for his legacy, to not be remembered as just shifting the deck chairs.

$700b was authorized, but $431b has been spent. The CBO estimates the total cost to taxpayers of TARP at $32 billion.

Bush didn't have to spend any of that money either. The point is the net spending is $32 billion, give or take.

It's like rain on your wedding day.