Monday, June 18, 2012 7:10:44 AM
rooster -- the great bulk of the growth in government spending as a percent of GDP since the early 1950s has been in state and local government spending -- the federal piece of government spending (the red; the blue representing transfer payments from the federal government to state and local governments, the spending by which in turn are respectively the first and second layers on top of the red federal direct spending piece) has held pretty damned stable at or near 20% for 60 years, including even these last couple under Obama:
( http://www.usgovernmentdebt.us/spending_brief.php , via http://www.usgovernmentdebt.us/federal_spending )
another relevant little chart (which aggregates the red and blue pieces in the above as 'Federal Expenses'):
(via http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_budget )
another (via the same source) that sheds some perspective:
and excerpted from http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfacts/displayafact.cfm?Docid=200 , federal outlays in dollars, fiscal year by fiscal year (2012 forward estimated):
2000: $1.7890 trillion
2001: $1.8629 trillion (last budget year of the Clinton administration)
2002: $2.0109 trillion (first budget year of the dubya administration)
2003: $2.1599 trillion
2004: $2.2929 trillion
2005: $2.4720 trillion
2006: $2.6551 trillion
2007: $2.7287 trillion
2008: $2.9825 trillion
2009: $3.5177 trillion (last budget year of the dubya administration)
2010: $3.4562 trillion (first budget year of the Obama administration)
2011: $3.6031 trillion
2012: $3.7955 trillion
2013: $3.8034 trillion
2014: $3.8831 trillion
hardly any sudden unprecedented explosion of federal spending under Obama
again:
Obama spending binge never happened
Government outlays rising at slowest pace since 1950s
http://articles.marketwatch.com/2012-05-22/commentary/31802270_1_spending-federal-budget-drunken-sailor
and see:
===
Obama hits Romney for 'constant distortions' on federal spending
By Jonathan Easley - 06/14/12 02:35 PM ET
President Obama’s deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter blasted Mitt Romney in a Web video [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovNU4mXwtrc (above)] on Thursday, accusing the presumptive GOP nominee of “constant distortions” when talking about the president’s record and not telling “the truth” about his own.
“Mitt Romney must think you’re not paying attention to the facts in this election,” Cutter said. “Because there’s no other way to explain his constant distortions about the president and his record.”
Text from the video shows a line from the Romney campaign’s website that says federal spending has accelerated “without precedent in recent history” under President Obama.
“This is wrong, totally wrong,” Cutter says.
Cutter said spending under Obama has grown at the slowest rate since the 1950s, citing the $2 trillion in spending cuts from the Budget Control Act, and said the administration has recovered billions by flagging waste, fraud and abuse in government spending.
The campaigns have been going back and forth on this issue for almost three weeks.
In May, Obama argued that it was Republican spending that led to the massive deficit he inherited and that Romney was giving voters a “cow pie of distortion” by putting it all on the president.
And White House press secretary Jay Carney ripped GOP criticism about spending under the Obama administration, calling it “BS.” Carney said reporting on the GOP criticism without exploring the counterargument is “a sign of sloth and laziness” by reporters.
“Do not buy into the BS that you hear,” Carney said to reporters aboard Air Force One in late May.??Carney, a former reporter, read a passage from an article by Rex Nutting at MarketWatch called “The Obama spending binge never happened,” which Cutter also cited in the Web video. ??The article says that spending under the Obama administration has grown more slowly than at any point since the 1950s, and that claims to the contrary are due to a misunderstanding of how to read federal budget data.
??“Although there was a big stimulus bill under Obama, federal spending is rising at the slowest pace since Dwight Eisenhower brought the Korean War to an end in the 1950s,” Nutting says in the article.
Republicans break down the administration’s spending as a percentage of gross domestic product, which would make the last four years the most profligate since World War II.
“Mitt Romney not only likes to distort our record, but he doesn’t like to tell the truth about his own,” Cutter continued.
Cutter says Romney’s economic plan would swell the deficit by $5 trillion because of tax cuts for the wealthiest citizens and that he left Massachusetts with a $1 billion deficit.
Independent fact checkers say the $1 billion number is not accurate but rather the high-end of an estimate that never materialized. While Romney’s economic plan would cut taxes by up to $5 trillion, his budget plan hasn’t been analyzed to estimate how that might affect the deficit.
© 2012 Capitol Hill Publishing Corp., a subsidiary of News Communications, Inc.
http://thehill.com/video/campaign/232811-obama-campaign-hits-romney-for-constant-distortions-on-presidents-spending-record [with comments]
===
Romney: No need to detail how I’ll pay for massive tax cuts. Just trust me.
By Greg Sargent
Posted at 11:41 AM ET, 06/17/2012
There’s a great deal to chew on in Mitt Romney’s interview with Bob Schieffer, which just aired on CBS [ http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-3460_162-57454827/face-the-nation-transcripts-june-17-2012-gov-romney-senator-graham-gov-dean/ ({linked in} http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=76700586 and following)].
Romney repeatedly refused to say whether he’d repeal Obama’s order to halt deportations of DREAM-eligible youth. He confirmed that he would not agree to even one dollar in new revenues in exchange for 10 dollars in spending cuts. And he again reiterated that his response to the crisis would be to cut government, in order to “ignite growth,” even though economists say [ http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/economists-romneys-ideas-wouldnt-fix-short-term-crisis-and-could-make-things-worse/2012/06/07/gJQAHKUWLV_blog.html ] that more austerity now would make the crisis worse.
But I wanted to flag this exchange in particular, in which Romney seemed to confirm that he will not be detailing how he would pay for his proposed tax cuts for the duration of the campaign:
SCHIEFFER: You haven’t been bashful about telling us yo want to cut taxes. When are you going to tell us where you’re going to get the revenue? Which of the deductions are you going to be willing to eliminate? Which of the tax credits are you going to — when are you going to be able to tell us that?
ROMNEY: Well, we’ll go through that process with Congress as to which of all the different deductions and the exemptions —
SCHIEFFER: But do you have an ideas now, like the home mortgage interest deduction, you know, the various ones?
ROMNEY: Well Simpson Bowles went though a process of saying how they would be able to reach a setting where they had actually under their proposal even more revenue, with lower rates. So, mathematically it’s been proved to be possible: We can have lower rates, as I propose, that creates more growth, and we can limit deductions and exemptions.
Romney went on to pledge, as he has in the past, that under his plan, the wealthy would continue to pay the same share of the tax burden as they do now. “I’m not looking to reduce the burden paid by the wealthiest,” he said. In other words, the disproportionally larger tax cut the wealthy would get from the across-the-board cut in rates he’s proposing would be offset by closing deductions and loopholes the rich currently enjoy. But asked twice by Schieffer how exactly he would do this, Romney refused to say, beyond noting that this has been mathematically proven to be possible. And in his first reply above, he confirmed that the details would be worked out with Congress when he is president — which is to say, not during the campaign.
As you may recall, Romney made big news when he was overheard at a private fundraiser revealing to donors [ http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/04/15/11216845-romney-offers-policy-details-at-closed-door-fundraiser?lite ] a few of the specific ways he’d pay for his massive tax cuts. Since then, details have been in short supply. And today, Romney seemed to confirm that he sees no need to reveal those details until he becomes president.
The message, in a nutshell: No, the rich won’t make out better than everyone else under my plan. No need to say how this would work in practice. Just trust me!
****************************************
UPDATE: Obama spokesman Ben LaBolt responds:
Mitt Romney has made clear that — for political reasons — he’s not going to disclose how he would pay for his $5 trillion tax cuts. So he’s either secretly raising taxes on a whole segment of the population he won’t disclose, making even more devastating cuts to programs essential to the middle class like education or exploding the deficit by 5 trillion dollars.
© 2012 The Washington Post (emphasis in original)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/romney-no-need-to-detail-how-ill-pay-for-massive-tax-cuts-just-trust-me/2012/06/17/gJQAJi4IjV_blog.html
===
(linked in):
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=75469106 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=76039817 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=76595625 and preceding and following
( http://www.usgovernmentdebt.us/spending_brief.php , via http://www.usgovernmentdebt.us/federal_spending )
another relevant little chart (which aggregates the red and blue pieces in the above as 'Federal Expenses'):
(via http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_budget )
another (via the same source) that sheds some perspective:
and excerpted from http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfacts/displayafact.cfm?Docid=200 , federal outlays in dollars, fiscal year by fiscal year (2012 forward estimated):
2000: $1.7890 trillion
2001: $1.8629 trillion (last budget year of the Clinton administration)
2002: $2.0109 trillion (first budget year of the dubya administration)
2003: $2.1599 trillion
2004: $2.2929 trillion
2005: $2.4720 trillion
2006: $2.6551 trillion
2007: $2.7287 trillion
2008: $2.9825 trillion
2009: $3.5177 trillion (last budget year of the dubya administration)
2010: $3.4562 trillion (first budget year of the Obama administration)
2011: $3.6031 trillion
2012: $3.7955 trillion
2013: $3.8034 trillion
2014: $3.8831 trillion
hardly any sudden unprecedented explosion of federal spending under Obama
again:
Obama spending binge never happened
Government outlays rising at slowest pace since 1950s
http://articles.marketwatch.com/2012-05-22/commentary/31802270_1_spending-federal-budget-drunken-sailor
and see:
===
Obama hits Romney for 'constant distortions' on federal spending
By Jonathan Easley - 06/14/12 02:35 PM ET
President Obama’s deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter blasted Mitt Romney in a Web video [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovNU4mXwtrc (above)] on Thursday, accusing the presumptive GOP nominee of “constant distortions” when talking about the president’s record and not telling “the truth” about his own.
“Mitt Romney must think you’re not paying attention to the facts in this election,” Cutter said. “Because there’s no other way to explain his constant distortions about the president and his record.”
Text from the video shows a line from the Romney campaign’s website that says federal spending has accelerated “without precedent in recent history” under President Obama.
“This is wrong, totally wrong,” Cutter says.
Cutter said spending under Obama has grown at the slowest rate since the 1950s, citing the $2 trillion in spending cuts from the Budget Control Act, and said the administration has recovered billions by flagging waste, fraud and abuse in government spending.
The campaigns have been going back and forth on this issue for almost three weeks.
In May, Obama argued that it was Republican spending that led to the massive deficit he inherited and that Romney was giving voters a “cow pie of distortion” by putting it all on the president.
And White House press secretary Jay Carney ripped GOP criticism about spending under the Obama administration, calling it “BS.” Carney said reporting on the GOP criticism without exploring the counterargument is “a sign of sloth and laziness” by reporters.
“Do not buy into the BS that you hear,” Carney said to reporters aboard Air Force One in late May.??Carney, a former reporter, read a passage from an article by Rex Nutting at MarketWatch called “The Obama spending binge never happened,” which Cutter also cited in the Web video. ??The article says that spending under the Obama administration has grown more slowly than at any point since the 1950s, and that claims to the contrary are due to a misunderstanding of how to read federal budget data.
??“Although there was a big stimulus bill under Obama, federal spending is rising at the slowest pace since Dwight Eisenhower brought the Korean War to an end in the 1950s,” Nutting says in the article.
Republicans break down the administration’s spending as a percentage of gross domestic product, which would make the last four years the most profligate since World War II.
“Mitt Romney not only likes to distort our record, but he doesn’t like to tell the truth about his own,” Cutter continued.
Cutter says Romney’s economic plan would swell the deficit by $5 trillion because of tax cuts for the wealthiest citizens and that he left Massachusetts with a $1 billion deficit.
Independent fact checkers say the $1 billion number is not accurate but rather the high-end of an estimate that never materialized. While Romney’s economic plan would cut taxes by up to $5 trillion, his budget plan hasn’t been analyzed to estimate how that might affect the deficit.
© 2012 Capitol Hill Publishing Corp., a subsidiary of News Communications, Inc.
http://thehill.com/video/campaign/232811-obama-campaign-hits-romney-for-constant-distortions-on-presidents-spending-record [with comments]
===
Romney: No need to detail how I’ll pay for massive tax cuts. Just trust me.
By Greg Sargent
Posted at 11:41 AM ET, 06/17/2012
There’s a great deal to chew on in Mitt Romney’s interview with Bob Schieffer, which just aired on CBS [ http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-3460_162-57454827/face-the-nation-transcripts-june-17-2012-gov-romney-senator-graham-gov-dean/ ({linked in} http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=76700586 and following)].
Romney repeatedly refused to say whether he’d repeal Obama’s order to halt deportations of DREAM-eligible youth. He confirmed that he would not agree to even one dollar in new revenues in exchange for 10 dollars in spending cuts. And he again reiterated that his response to the crisis would be to cut government, in order to “ignite growth,” even though economists say [ http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/economists-romneys-ideas-wouldnt-fix-short-term-crisis-and-could-make-things-worse/2012/06/07/gJQAHKUWLV_blog.html ] that more austerity now would make the crisis worse.
But I wanted to flag this exchange in particular, in which Romney seemed to confirm that he will not be detailing how he would pay for his proposed tax cuts for the duration of the campaign:
SCHIEFFER: You haven’t been bashful about telling us yo want to cut taxes. When are you going to tell us where you’re going to get the revenue? Which of the deductions are you going to be willing to eliminate? Which of the tax credits are you going to — when are you going to be able to tell us that?
ROMNEY: Well, we’ll go through that process with Congress as to which of all the different deductions and the exemptions —
SCHIEFFER: But do you have an ideas now, like the home mortgage interest deduction, you know, the various ones?
ROMNEY: Well Simpson Bowles went though a process of saying how they would be able to reach a setting where they had actually under their proposal even more revenue, with lower rates. So, mathematically it’s been proved to be possible: We can have lower rates, as I propose, that creates more growth, and we can limit deductions and exemptions.
Romney went on to pledge, as he has in the past, that under his plan, the wealthy would continue to pay the same share of the tax burden as they do now. “I’m not looking to reduce the burden paid by the wealthiest,” he said. In other words, the disproportionally larger tax cut the wealthy would get from the across-the-board cut in rates he’s proposing would be offset by closing deductions and loopholes the rich currently enjoy. But asked twice by Schieffer how exactly he would do this, Romney refused to say, beyond noting that this has been mathematically proven to be possible. And in his first reply above, he confirmed that the details would be worked out with Congress when he is president — which is to say, not during the campaign.
As you may recall, Romney made big news when he was overheard at a private fundraiser revealing to donors [ http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/04/15/11216845-romney-offers-policy-details-at-closed-door-fundraiser?lite ] a few of the specific ways he’d pay for his massive tax cuts. Since then, details have been in short supply. And today, Romney seemed to confirm that he sees no need to reveal those details until he becomes president.
The message, in a nutshell: No, the rich won’t make out better than everyone else under my plan. No need to say how this would work in practice. Just trust me!
****************************************
UPDATE: Obama spokesman Ben LaBolt responds:
Mitt Romney has made clear that — for political reasons — he’s not going to disclose how he would pay for his $5 trillion tax cuts. So he’s either secretly raising taxes on a whole segment of the population he won’t disclose, making even more devastating cuts to programs essential to the middle class like education or exploding the deficit by 5 trillion dollars.
© 2012 The Washington Post (emphasis in original)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/romney-no-need-to-detail-how-ill-pay-for-massive-tax-cuts-just-trust-me/2012/06/17/gJQAJi4IjV_blog.html
===
(linked in):
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=75469106 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=76039817 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=76595625 and preceding and following
Greensburg, KS - 5/4/07
"Eternal vigilance is the price of Liberty."
from John Philpot Curran, Speech
upon the Right of Election, 1790
F6
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