This is just current government expenditures divided by the GDP deflator, starting from 1982IV and 2009II; no attempt to separate out unemployment benefits, other transfers, etc..
Source: Paul Krugman
Facts are stubborn things. As Paul Krugman points out in this awesome chart – Reagan spent SIGNIFICANTLY more than President Obama in real terms. When Reagan took over – the deficit was $909 billion and it exploded to $2.6 trillion or 286% MORE than what he inherited. Source: HERE. To put that in comparison to Obama in terms of spending – he inherited a deficit of $10.4 trillion…and to increase the deficit as much as Reagan as a % – the deficit would have to be $29.8 trillion after 8 years.
And obviously – if Obama isn’t spending more than Reagan but we’re continuing to accrue large deficits….what do you think is causing that? Tax cuts. Obama has passed more tax cuts than any other president in history and that is why revenues are so low…and that is a large part (but not all) of the reason that our deficits are so tremendous. Obama is putting Keynesian economics to work to help put the economy back on firm fiscal footing to get out of the Bush era economic crisis that he was handed.
This chart below shows tax revenues stayed mostly the same – under Reagan…federal spending increased significantly. And the key point here…every single Republican talks about Ronald Reagan as if he were the 2nd coming. They would all model their presidencies around his and believe he was born on top of a mountain…where a lonely North star oversaw his birth.
Source: Politics Invivo
Here’s another chart showing the federal debt by president….
Source: Bayou Buzz
4 Comments
[...] we have shared HERE - there is a vast difference in spending when comparing the Reagan and Obama presidencies. [...]
[...] – government spending was significantly higher than under President Obama as we talked about HERE and shown [...]
[...] People like to knock the President for huge deficits….but few people actually seem to understand what actually caused the deficit in the first place. For 2008 – the country had a $1 trillion deficit. That’s what was handed to President Obama. Now in 1980 – Ronald Reagan took over a struggling economy…but the country had a deficit right at $1 trillion in real terms. If you compare spending between Reagan’s era and Obama’s era…it’s pretty clear – Reagan spent A LOT more – source HERE. [...]
[...] can find the source for the chart HERE. People look back to the Reagan era as some panacea of conservatism and I can only think [...]