It wasn’t supposed to be this way. Over three years with crushing unemployment. American manufacturing shrinking again. President (Barack) Obama’s plan: Spend more. He’s added $4 billion in debt every day. The economy is slowing but our debt keeps growing. Tell him for real job growth cut the debt.
I had a comment submitted on this blog recently (about my antagonists) which sums this statement up: This is like a child who’s killed his parents asking for the court to give him mercy because he is an orphan. This is also another case of pot, meet kettle. PolitiFact Florida rated this claim Half True:
Crossroads GPS has its math correct what it says that Obama has "added $4 billion in debt every day." But the ad suggests that Obama is solely to blame. That’s not true, because other factors -- including the struggling economy he inherited and decisions made before he took office -- contributed to that debt. We rate this claim Half True.
PolitiFact Florida’s Amy Sherman bases her conclusion on interviews with “three experts on the federal budget” who are diversified In their political leanings.
Burtless said that most of the debt added under Obama would have happened even if he followed the tax and spending policies in effect when he took office. But Obama embraced policies that increased the public debt -- including signing the stimulus package and agreeing to other measures that held down taxes and increased unemployment benefits.
First, it needs to be said that austerity (cutting debt) will not result in job growth; this is almost an economy 101 axiom, and is being borne out in Europe today. And the empirical evidence of Bush’s tenure shows that cutting taxes does not create jobs either. Even with cuts, taxes must be raised to (try to) balance the budget. And the Republican congress, if it continues in power, and it likely will following the elections, are not going to allow this to happen.
This is not an either/or proposition: debt must be cut and revenue must be raised. For those reasons, for Obama to do what Karl Rove demands is mathematically impossible. It’s even more mathematically impossible in the hazily worded budgets proposed by Mitt Romney.
Nevertheless, PolitiFact puts the onus squarely on presidential policies. The New York Times published this graphical depiction of what makes up the debt due to presidential policies, and Obama got assigned his share:
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| Click to enlarge: Even adjusting for "TARP paybacks" Obama's way below $4B per day. |
As Jon Perr of Perrspectives so aptly interprets this chart for the Bush side:
And so, the fiscal hemorrhaging began. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Medicare prescription drug program and, most of all, the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 rapidly drained Uncle Sam's coffers. Mitch McConnell, John Boehner and Eric Cantor voted for all of it. And along with large majorities of the Republicans in the House and Senate, they voted seven times during Bush's tenure to raise the debt ceiling as well.
As shown in the chart, Obama’s policies directly make up 22 percent of the total costs incurred, while Bush’s policies directly make up 78 percent. Calculating it out per day, that’s $872 million per day for Bush, and $245 million per day for Obama. The remainder is what was already in place. $246 million instead of $4 billion, easily qualifies for a False or Mostly False at PolitiFact. Even if this was said about Bush by the Democrats, it would not even be Half True.
What also should be noted is that most of Obama’s costs were temporary in nature—not recurring (the wars) or permanent (like the Medicare Part D and most likely the tax cuts) like Bush’s.
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| Click to enlarge |
Let’s also take a graphical look at what would happen if Obama made the same type of cuts as Romney proposes, since the ad obviously wants voters to go for Romney. This graphic (right) from an American Progress Action report, sourced from the CBO, shows what it would take for the Romney Tax Plan to comply with the Balanced Budget Amendment. It leaves out defense spending and interest. It gives the stark Sophie’s Choice of budget cutting: which will it be, almost all of social security and Medicare, or almost all of everything else? I see another graphic passed around frequently on Facebook that says something to the effect that Congress should be put on minimum age, so they can see how the rest of us feel—according to this, they may actually have to be put on minimum wage, if they want to really enact those cuts. But they don’t.
In fact, instead of Mitch McConnell, John Boehner and Eric Cantor, there’s somebody else that voted for all of this and even proposed plans to privatize not just Medicare but social security…and that’s our new Republican vice presidential candidate, Paul Ryan. The so-called fiscal conservative voted for huge unfunded expenditures….which was okay until there was a Democratic president. Then we suddenly needed to cut (the two Santa Claus theory in action).
Privatizing social security would require massive amounts of funding because of the way it is set up as a pay-go system. You can’t give one group benefits that use all the money and set aside funds for another at the same time. And then those who have “accounts” are now basically dependent on the roll of the Wall Street dice. Ryan promoted this with President Bush in 2005, until the stock market collapsed in 2008—when the dice sevened out (that’s a craps term which means everyone betting on the “long” side lost while the House—Wall Street--won) and it became obvious to the public what privatization really meant.
So here we have a much, much, much bigger spender accusing Obama of being a big spender. As noted by CAP:
The various fiscal promises Gov. Romney makes simply cannot work together. He cannot simultaneously cut taxes as he's proposed, increase defense spending, protect Social Security and Medicare for current and near-future retirees, and also balance the budget. It is mathematically impossible.
So to sum up, what we have is a hypocritical assertion that’s about 94 percent off, demanding an impossibility. And our esteemed fact-checker gives it a Half True. As my conservative counterpart would say, that’s PolitiFact for you.
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