Charts: What if Obama spent like Reagan?

[pampango]

17. If you think it suggests "Reagan started fixing the problem", you must be a big Obama fan.

Reagan lowered the growth in spending from 13.5% (under Carter) to 6.8%, so about 1/2 the growth rate of the previous administration. (Out of kindness I won't go into what Reagan did to the federal deficit.) Obama lowered the growth in spending from 7.7% (under Bush) to 1.4%.

If all you had were the percentages and no names: 13.5% to 6.8% and 7.7% to 1.4% which would look more like someone who was 'fixing the problem'? From the praise that Reagan gets in some circles you would think that he actually decreased spending (and the deficit) rather than increasing both.

As far as going back to the taxing and spending under Clinton: he raised spending at a 3.5% annual rate (1/2 of the Reagan rate, but 2 1/2 times the Obama rate) so I would like to at least go back to that Clinton standard and see more spending. And Clinton achieved a budget surplus (which Bush and the republican congress destroyed in a year) with that spending rate growth and modest tax increases, so I could live with his taxing policy too.

"What needs to be cut out of the current budget..." - Reagan cut nothing from the Carter budget. Obviously he increased some things and decreased others, but he increased overall spending by 6.8% a year over the amount of the Carter budget, so he was hardly a budget hawk. Obama has been much more of a budget hawk than Reagan ever was. (Much to the chagrin of many of us.)