On 11/6/2012 11:39 AM, Jay Herblock wrote:
http://online.wsj.com/
Whether or not Americans choose to believe him, there's no denying the
fiscal reality created by the rollout version of President Obama last
year, as detailed in the Congressional Budget Office report released
yesterday. For the second year in a row, fiscal 2010 will see a
trillion-dollar deficit�an estimated $1.35 trillion, or 9.2% of GDP,
which is down slightly from last year's post-World War II record of 9.9%.
The slow pace of economic recovery has contributed to a collapse in
revenues, down to 14.8% of GDP in 2009 and an estimated 14.9% this year.
That's well below the modern historical average of about 18.1%, and it
is a reminder that economic growth is the most important contributor to
smaller deficits. Had last year's "stimulus" worked half as well as the
White House advertised, these deficits wouldn't be as large.
But as the nearby chart shows, Mr. Obama's major contribution to
deficits has been a record spending spree. In 2007, before the
recession, federal expenditures reached $2.73 trillion. By 2009
expenditures had climbed to $3.52 trillion. In 2009 alone, overall
federal spending rose 18%, or $536 billion. Throw in a $65 billion
reduction in debt service costs due to low interest rates, and the
overall spending increase was 22%.
In one year.
CBO confirms that Democrats have taken federal spending to a new and
higher plateau: 24.7% of GDP in 2009, 24.1% this year, and back to an
estimated 24.3% in 2011. The modern historical average is about 20.5%,
and less than that if you exclude the Reagan defense buildup of the
1980s that helped to win the Cold War and let Bill Clinton reduce
defense spending to 3% of GDP in the 1990s.
This means that one of every four dollars produced by the sweat of
American private labor is now taxed and redistributed by 535 men and
women in Congress.