I wonder why the graph doesn't include 2009, the first year of the Obama presidency? Sure, the "*" notes the stimulus reassigned to Obama, but that was only part of the more than half a trillion dollars of spending increase from fiscal year 2008 to 2009. Bush never saw a FY 2009 budget. The Democratic Congress waited until Obama had been sworn in to pass a budget, and he signed the FY 2009 budget on March 12 of that year. Altogether, Congress spent more than $400 billion more in FY 2009 than Bush had asked to be appropriated in his budget proposal (which the Democrats ignored).
In 2009, Obama and Congress increased spending by $535 billion over the fiscal year 2008 baseline. If you add up the amounts by which spending in the fiscal years 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012 has exceeded the fiscal year 2008 baseline, it is $2.44 trillion. Put another way, federal spending in fiscal 2008 was $2,983,000,000 (rounded). In fiscal 2012, it is projected to be $3,796,000,000. That means that on Obama’s watch, spending has increased by $813 billion, or 27% over the 2008 baseline, roughly 6.75% per year. What's more, since the Democrats took control of Congress in January 2007, federal spending has increased 39%. Hardly as thrifty as, say, Clinton and the Republican Congress.
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05-24-2012, 12:26 PM
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