Associated Press: FACT CHECK: Obama thrifty spending claim, and MarketWatch analysis, are way off [View all]

[stockholmer]

Last edited Sun May 27, 2012, 05:36 PM - Edit history (2)

http://dailycaller.com/2012/05/26/fact-check-obama-off-on-thrifty-spending-claim/

WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House is aggressively pushing the idea that, contrary to widespread belief, President Barack Obama is tightfisted with taxpayer dollars. To back it up, the administration cites a media report that claims federal spending is rising at the slowest pace since the Eisenhower years.

“Federal spending since I took office has risen at the slowest pace of any president in almost 60 years,” Obama said at a campaign rally Thursday in Des Moines, Iowa.

The problem with that rosy claim is that the Wall Street bailout is part of the calculation. The bailout ballooned the 2009 budget just before Obama took office, making Obama’s 2010 results look smaller in comparison. And as almost $150 billion of the bailout was paid back during Obama’s watch, the analysis counted them as government spending cuts. It also assumes Obama had less of a role setting the budget for 2009 than he really did.

Obama rests his claim on an analysis by MarketWatch, a financial information and news service owned by Dow Jones & Co. The analysis simply looks at the year-to-year topline spending number for the government but doesn’t account for distortions baked into the figures by the Wall Street bailout and government takeover of the mortgage lending giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

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I posted this as to stimulate debate and counter rebuttals from the people on this site. This will be latched onto by President Obama's opponents, and debate is the essence of the political process.

Rmoney would make a HORRID president, far far worse than President Obama, and I am in no way advocating anything in regards for support to the horrific Republican candidate.


This was an AP article, and there are other postings of it on the net:


http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/politics/fact-check-obama-off-on-thrifty-spending-claim/article_b293c629-e702-50c7-bb94-1ae53c09a474.html

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505245_162-57442013/fact-check-obama-off-on-thrifty-spending-claim/

http://articles.boston.com/2012-05-26/news/31861674_1_spending-president-barack-obama-fannie-freddie

http://blogs.desmoinesregister.com/dmr/index.php/2012/05/26/fact-check-obama-off-on-thrifty-spending-claim/

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/politics/sns-bc-us--obama-spending-factcheck1stld-writethru,0,1501947.story