Bush Deficit vs. Obama Deficit in Pictures
By Conn
March 24, 2009
http://blog.heritage.org/2009/03/24/bush-deficit-vs-obama-deficit-in-pictures/
President Barack Obama has repeatedly claimed that his budget would cut the deficit by half by the end of his term. But as Heritage analyst Brian Riedl has pointed out, given that Obama has already helped quadruple the deficit with his stimulus package, pledging to halve it by 2013 is hardly ambitious. The Washington Post has a great graphic (ABOVE) which helps put President Obama’s budget deficits in context of President Bush’s.
What’s driving Obama’s unprecedented massive deficits? Spending. Riedl details:
President Bush expanded the federal budget by a historic $700 billion through 2008. President Obama would add another $1 trillion.
President Bush began a string of expensive financial bailouts. President Obama is accelerating that course.
President Bush created a Medicare drug entitlement that will cost an estimated $800 billion in its first decade. President Obama has proposed a $634 billion down payment on a new government health care fund.
President Bush increased federal education spending 58 percent faster than inflation. President Obama would double it.
President Bush became the first President to spend 3 percent of GDP on federal antipoverty programs. President Obama has already increased this spending by 20 percent.
President Bush tilted the income tax burden more toward upper-income taxpayers. President Obama would continue that trend.
President Bush presided over a $2.5 trillion increase in the public debt through 2008. Setting aside 2009 (for which Presidents Bush and Obama share responsibility for an additional $2.6 trillion in public debt), President Obama’s budget would add $4.9 trillion in public debt from the beginning of 2010 through 2016.
UPDATE: Many Obama defenders in the comments are claiming that the numbers above do not include spending on Iraq and Afghanistan
While Bush did fund the wars through emergency supplementals (not the regular budget process), that spending did not simply vanish. It is included in the numbers above. Also, some Obama defenders are claiming the graphic above represents biased Heritage Foundation numbers. While we stand behind the numbers we put out 100%, the numbers, and the graphic itself, above are from the Washington
Read the full piece: http://blog.heritage.org/2009/03/24/bush-deficit-vs-obama-deficit-in-pictures/
2 comments:
And this Pant-Load-in-Chief, to this day, still blames G.W. Bush and will still be blaming him when he loses in 2012.
Yeah thank God for Conn Carrol, the Heritage Foundation and that great visual from the Washington Post!
When you see the two side-by-side it's very jarring.
I'm not even looking at 12 yet Dan....I'm focused on 2010 for two reasons, (1) the hope that we can put an end this Democratic disaster by ending their one-Party rule and (2) making sure that Conservatives and the Conservative agenda holds sway in the GOP.
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