Democracy Has Prevailed.

October 20, 2010

Hey, Did You Know This??

From Washington Monthly (quoting the Wall Street Journal):
The federal government budget deficit shrank in fiscal 2010, but the big gap was only $122 billion lower than the record high set a year ago.

The U.S. spent $1.294 trillion more than it collected in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, the Treasury Department said Friday.

The deficit amounted to 8.9% of gross domestic product. That's down from fiscal 2009, when the deficit of $1.416 trillion was 10.0% of GDP.
They put it another way:
The $1.294 trillion shortfall is smaller than last year's total; it's slightly lower than the deficit President Obama inherited from his predecessor; and the final figure was smaller than projections made by the administration and the CBO earlier this year.
Still way high, but Obama's first budget deficit was (now wait for it) lower than Bush's last.

And now a thought experiment:
Want to have some fun? Ask your favorite Tea Partier whether the deficit they claim to care so much about is higher or lower now than when Obama took office. They won't care for the answer, but it's true.
Any takers?

1 comment:

Conservative Mountaineer said...

Disingenious, at best.

A few facts. Just for the record.

You do know the Federal Budget is October 1-September 30. When someone refers to, say FY 2009, that means for the budget year ending in September 2009. You know that, don't you? Well, you do now.

George Bush left office January 20, 2009. ~3-1/2 months into FY2009.

Bush's budget for FY 2009 projected a deficit of ~$415-$450 Billion.

Obama took office January 20, 2009. He owned the FY2209 budget for almost 9 months.

The Porkulus bill, $780-$850 Billion was passed *under Obama's watch*. It was NOT in Bush's bill. Voila! An additional $780-$850 Billion in deficit spending.

There were other additonal spending bills passed *under Obama's watch* for FY 2009.

So, the bulk of the deficit spending CAN be attibuted to Obama, Reid and Pelosi. It can be argued, quite rightky IMHO, that many of the Obama policies, both enacted and feared, contributed greatly to economic meltdown and reduction in Federal tax revenues.

Go ahead and delude yourself. Those of us in the real world.. Company owners and business people.. know the truth.