An Answer to a Comment on Presidents

My comments yesterday about politics and religion prompted an anonymous commenter to post his take on the “worst” President. His comment:

Anonymous said...

All in all, George Bush took an actual sur­plus of $127 bil­lion in 2001, and
turned it into a deficit of $319 bil­lion in 2005. His total in new spend­ing
equaled over $5 tril­lion. This fig­ure dwarfs the $1.44 tril­lion in new
spend­ing Pres­i­dent Obama is expected to make through two terms end­ing in
2017.
It should be noted that the biggest spend­ing spree George Bush and the
Repub­li­cans went on, accord­ing to these fig­ures from the
Con­gres­sional Bud­get Office, were the Bush Tax Cuts. The New York Times
report puts it this way; “If all of them [Bush Tax Cuts] expired as
sched­uled at the end of 2012, future deficits would be cut by about half, to
sus­tain­able levels”.
Worst President ever? You must have been asleep between January 2001 and January 2009.

Anonymous seems to think the only thing to judge a President on is the amount of deficit that a President incurs during their term. Now, I will agree that President George W. Bush spent too much. Or, I guess I should say that he didn’t have the inclination or fortitude to veto the bills presented to him by the Congress.

You see, it is the Congress that initiates the spending bills, even though sometimes with the encouragement of the President. So, let’s be sure and include Congress in the mix as to spending and thus incurring additional deficits or debt.

Also, keep in mind that the unemployment rate during President George W. Bush’s terms were a LOT less than those in Obama’s short 2 years and 10 months so far. I’ll stack up Bush’s 8 years of good unemployment numbers against Obama’s any day. If I remember right, the worst unemployment rate, based on “new” unemployment benefit applications, during Bush’s term was something like 5.7% compared to Obama’s 9% plus.at his worst so far.

Speaking of unemployment, the actual number of unemployed is probably closer to 17% (or more) rather than the 9% “new” benefit applications. Many of those unemployed have gone beyond the extended period of time that unemployment benefits have been allowed to them. I would imagine a number of them have given up looking and are simply working part time.

Now, as for the spending of the two last Presidents, I seem to have some different numbers than those of Anonymous. He claims that Obama’s spending will be $1.44 Trillion over a two term period of time. I think those numbers are a wee bit shaky, and I even think I detect the smell of a smoke screen here.

Back in January of this year, which was 10 months ago, an article appeared on NPR’s website which was one from The Weekly Standard and was written by one Jeffrey H. Henderson. In that article (link to be provided below just so I can show my source of numbers), there is this passage:

“When President Obama took office two years ago, the national debt stood at $10.626 trillion. It now stands at $14.071 trillion — a staggering increase of $3.445 trillion in just 735 days (about $5 billion a day).

To put that into perspective, when President George W. Bush took office, our national debt was $5.768 trillion. By the time Bush left office, it had nearly doubled, to $10.626 trillion. So Bush's record on deficit spending was not good at all: During his presidency, the national debt rose by an average of $607 billion a year. How does that compare to Obama? During Obama's presidency to date, the national debt has risen by an average of $1.723 trillion a year — or by a jaw-dropping $1.116 trillion more, per year, than it rose even under Bush.”

Here is more:

“According to the White House's Office of Management and Budget, during his eight fiscal years, Bush ran up a total of $3.283 trillion in deficit spending (p. 22). In his first two fiscal years, Obama will run up a total of $2.826 trillion in deficit spending ($1.294 trillion in 2010, an estimated $1.267 trillion in 2011 (p. 23), and the $265 billion in "stimulus" money that was spent in 2009). Thus, Bush ran up an average of $410 billion in deficit spending per year, while Obama is running up an average of $1.413 trillion in deficit spending per year — or $1.003 trillion a year more than Bush.”

Now, how do those numbers stack up compared to Anonymous’s projected number of $1.44 trillion over a supposed 8 year term for Obama?  Also, keep in mind that during the last two years of Bush’s presidency there was a Dcmocratic Party controlled Congress.  Since Bush was somewhat lacking in the ability to veto legislation, it was still the Congress that created most of the spending in those last two years.

Somebody’s numbers (and perhaps their sources) are just a wee bit fuzzy. Oh, and I get tired of the liberals saying that a tax cut is actually “spending” and Democratic Party officials are always crying as to how can we “pay for a tax cut.” You don’t. You just don’t take the people’s money. Tax cuts are not “paid for” from the treasury.

Oh, and as a final thought, it has been proven a number of times that tax cuts increase the revenue to the U.S. treasury. So, with more than 8,000,000 extra people out of work, I wonder what effect that is having on the revenues? Anyone with any sense of economics would have a clue or common sense would have a clue.

Now, the link to my source and NPR is not even close to being considered a conservative source of news.

http://www.npr.org/2011/01/25/133211508/the-weekly-standard-obama-vs-bush-on-debt