Post your favorite graph/chart etc. showing Obama or dems vs GOP re: debt, deficit

[Hamlette]

a woman at work hates Obama because he is spending us into bankruptcy will ruin the country. She should be a dem but never will be BUT we had a short convo with me saying the GOP is responsible for most of the debt (she said Obama had tripled it since he'd been in office). She said she would like to like Obama and if I could show her something that said that, she'd like to see it.

I've seen great graphs over the last couple of years but only saved a few. Do you have some I could print out and give her? Couldn't hurt.

[progree]

1. Yup - graphs and tables galore about the economy --

Last edited Thu Nov 15, 2012, 03:37 AM - Edit history (2)

Economy facts - numbers to refer to in discussions with persuadables. With official sources
http://www.democraticunderground.com/111622439

Since you mention the national debt, please see EF 5. National Debt. Budget Deficits and Surpluses
at http://www.democraticunderground.com/111622439#post5

As for the Obama tripling the debt claim - that's not true. It is true however that the DEFICIT (not the debt) about tripled if one compares Fiscal Year 2010 (Obama's first full fiscal year) to Fiscal Year 2008 (Bush's last full fiscal year). What they leave out is that Fiscal Year 2009's budget, signed into law by Bush, had a projected $1.2 Trillion deficit, according to a CBO study done before Obama assumed office. So blame the first greater-than-trillion-dollar deficit on the Bush financial crash and Bush's signature pen. There's more on that at the above link.

I don't have anything at the above links on spending yet, but see below

Here's another major major economy resource: CabCurious' "Factual talking points on the economy" - lots of very interesting graphs - take a "scroll" through them. http://www.democraticunderground.com/125170175

The original post has a graph of average annual spending increase percent by all presidents since (and including) Eisenhower, with Obama having the lowest average annual spending percent increase of them all. Oh, and please see the "Federal Spending Flattens Under Obama" graph right below it.

There is also a deficit graph in the OP.

[progree]

2. Budget deficits and Federal spending under Obama

Some new stuff on budget deficits and surpluses, and federal spending, from http://www.democraticunderground.com/111622439#post5

{#} Budget Deficits and Surpluses

# The U.S. Federal Deficit By Year - There were surpluses in the last 4 Clinton years: FY 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001 (well, the last 8 months of FY 2001 fell into the G.W. Bush administration). Anyway G.W. Bush inherited a string of surpluses and managed to turn that around into 8 straight years of deficits and to nearly double the national debt.
# URL: http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/Historicals

Note: although there were 4 straight years of surpluses during the last 4 Clinton years, the national debt went up every year, thanks to (I think) trust funds accounting, -- FFI: http://www.democraticunderground.com/111621802#post12

Some righties telling you that Obama doubled the last Bush deficit, from less than 500 B$ to more than a trillion dollars?

They are trying to make you think that the last Bush year was Fiscal Year 2008. Actually, the last Bush budget (FY 2009) contained a projected deficit of $1.2 Trillion. Fiscal Year 2009 covers 10/1/08 - 9/30/09 -- the last 3 2/3 months of the Bush Administration plus the first 8 1/3 months of the Obama administration. The budget for FY 2009 was signed into law by Bush. It contained a projected $1.2 trillion deficit according to FactCheck.org:

Shortly before Obama assumed office, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office {on January 7, 2009} projected that the deficit for fiscal year 2009 would be $1.2 trillion ( http://cbo.gov/ftpdocs/99xx/doc9957/MainText.3.1.shtml ). {Bush left office and Obama assumed office on January 20, 2009 at noon}

The fiscal year ended on Sept. 30, 2009, with the deficit at $1.4 trillion. But only some of that was Obama’s doing. We conducted an exhaustive study of the spending bills Obama signed for that year, and concluded that Obama can be fairly assigned responsibility for a maximum of $203 billion in additional spending for fiscal 2009. Others put the amount lower: Economist Daniel J. Mitchell of the libertarian CATO Institute — who once served on the Republican staff of the Senate Finance Committee — has put the figure at $140 billion.

More: http://factcheck.org/2012/09/romney-obama-court-moms-distort-facts/

{#} ACTUAL Federal Spending and Deficits - Fiscal Years 2008 - 2012

[div style="display:inline; font-size:1.37em; font-family:monospace; white-space:pre;"] v-last Bush budget
[div style="display:inline; font-size:1.37em; font-family:monospace; white-space:pre;"] 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 Fiscal Year
[div style="display:inline; font-size:1.37em; font-family:monospace; white-space:pre;"] 2,979.7 3,518.0 3,456.0 3,598.0 3,540 Total Outlays
[div style="display:inline; font-size:1.37em; font-family:monospace; white-space:pre;"] (455.7) (1,414.0) (1,294.0) (1,296.0) (1,091) Surplus (deficit)

Source of FY 2008 through FY 2011: http://www.issuewonk.com/gov.asp?ID=Spending%20History%202008-2012
. . . who in turn says the source is the CBO (Congressional Budget Office)
Source of FY 2012 (September 2012 is preliminary so FY 2012 is preliminary):
. . . http://www.cbo.gov/publication/43656 which links to the complete document at
. . . http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/attachments/2012_09_MBR.pdf

So FY 2012 federal spending (prelim) is only a $22 billion increase (0.62% increase) over FY 2009 (the last Bush budget)

Note: all figures in this section are actual, not budgeted. I only point out that Bush signed the FY 2009 budget.

Since the nominal GDP increased by 11.50% between FY 2009 (a recession low point) and FY 2012 (see next paragraph), which is more than the 0.62% increase in federal spending, that means federal spending as a percentage of GDP actually dropped during those 3 years -- from 25.24% of GDP to 22.78% of GDP (calculations below)

In Current Dollars: GDP FY 2009 = 13,937.5 . GDP FY 2012 = 15,540.2 -- an increase of 11.50%.
Source of GDP figures: http://www.bea.gov/national/xls/gdplev.xls
where FY 2009 = Q4 2008 through Q3 2009. And FY 2012 = Q4 2011 through Q3 2012.

FY 2009: Spending / GDP = 3518/13938 = 25.24% . FY 2012: Spending / GDP = 3540/15540 = 22.78%

See the previous section that explains that the Fiscal Year 2009 budget (Oct. 1, 2008 - Sept 30, 2009) was signed into law by G.W. Bush, and how the CBO on January 7, 2009 (13 days before Bush left office) projected a $1.2 trillion deficit for FY 2009. So all but about $200 billion of FY 2009 spending and deficits was "baked in" before Bush left office.