Obama vs Bush deficits
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| Wed, 04-08-2009 - 9:15pm |
I was asked by cat.smacks about the Obama vs Bush deficits. I found an interesting story about them. It seems worth pasting here.
Story from - 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 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 during the Bush years. They most certainly do. 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 Post. We originally left out the link to WaPo. It has been now been added.
CLARIFICATION: Of course, this Washington Post graphic does not perfectly delineate budget surpluses and deficits by administration. President Bush took office in January 2001, and therefore played a lead role in crafting the FY 2002-2008 budgets. Presidents Bush and Obama share responsibility for the FY 2009 budget deficit that overlaps their administrations, before President Obama assumes full budgetary responsibility beginning in FY 2010. Overall, President Obama’s budget would add twice as much debt as President Bush over the same number of years.

In the 1990's under the Clinton administration, Fannie and Freddy got a lecture about the need to help get more minorities into their own homes.
Fannie and Freddy didn't lend much to minorities as most didn't have the 5-20% required for a down payment.
Under Clinton the down payment requirement was relaxed, and many poor, which included the desired minorities, were able to purchase a home almost completely on credit.
The Bush administration permitted banks to run without substantial regulation in the area of sub-prime loans (something Democrats pushed Fannie and Freddy to create in the 90's).
The result was Democrats pushing to get unqualified people into homes, and Republicans not sufficiently regulating banks to stop it. We now have one heck of a financial fiasco with both parties to blame. Fraud ruled the day, and many, possibly even the majority, of sub-prime loans were the result of fraud by both lenders and borrowers.
The fraud is so pervasive and both parties are to blame that our government will do nothing about it. Except bail out the banks to prevent a banking collapse.
The bailout prevents banks which avoided substantial involvement with sub-prime loans from becoming dominant, it also keeps bad banks which were greedy and politically correct to stay in power.
This is the triumph of politics over economics. It is not a good sign for our economic future in my opinion.