Deficit spending under Obama has been mind boggling
This post may help the laymen wrap their head around just how much deficit spending we are talking about.
The Weekly Standard:
* In actual dollars, President Obama’s $4.4 trillion in deficit spending in just three years is 37 percent higher than the previous record of $3.2 trillion (held by President George W. Bush) in deficit spending for an entire presidency. It’s no small feat to demolish an 8-year record in just 3 years.
* In inflation-adjusted dollars, President Obama’s $3.8 trillion (in constant fiscal-year 2005 dollars) in deficit spending in just three years is nearly double our $2 trillion (in constant fiscal-year 2005 dollars) in deficit spending in the five fiscal years during which we were fighting World War II (FY 1942-46). It’s no small feat to nearly double the United States’ inflation-adjusted deficits during the largest conflict in human history, and to do so in less time than it took American GIs to fight that two-front war.
* As a percentage of the gross domestic product (GDP), President Obama’s average annual deficit spending is 9.7 percent of GDP. That’s higher than during any single year of the Great Depression, the Cold War, the Korean War, or Vietnam. In fact, the only deficits in more than 200 years of American history that have exceeded even 6 percent of GDP have all involved either the Civil War, World War I, World War II, or President Obama.
* In average annual deficit spending as a percentage of GDP, the nearby chart shows how President Obama stacks up against other presidents who have served during the past four decades.
* The Obama deficit legacy, moreover, will be felt well beyond his tenure in office, especially if that tenure extends beyond a single term. First, Obama’s spending through 2012 essentially doesn’t include Obama-care. The CBO projects that Obama-care will increase spending by more than $2 trillion in the overhaul’s real first decade (2014 to 2023). That’s more than $2 trillion that could -otherwise be used to pay down the debt, rather than allowing the debt to rise continually and then piling a massive new entitlement program on top of it.
And these numbers are just to February of this year.