FACT CHECK: Obama off on thrifty spending claim (Surprise! AP guts Obama on budget lies)

The Associated Press ^ | Saturday, May 26, 2012 | Andrew Taylor

[kristinn]

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.

SNIP

So how does Obama measure up?

If one assumes that TARP and the takeover of Fannie and Freddie by the government as one-time budgetary anomalies and remove them from calculations - an approach taken by Holtz-Eakin - you get the following picture:

-A 9.7 percent increase in 2009, much of which is attributable to Obama.

-A 7.8 percent increase in 2010, followed by slower spending growth over 2011-13. Much of the slower growth reflects the influence of Republicans retaking control of the House and their budget and debt deal last summer with Obama. All told, government spending now appears to be growing at an annual rate of roughly 3 percent over the 2010-2013 period, rather than the 0.4 percent claimed by Obama and the MarketWatch analysis.

[HChampagne]

Do not worry. AP will be back in cover mode very soon. These stories are just to give them credence.

[Cementjungle]

All told, government spending now appears to be growing at an annual rate of roughly 3 percent over the 2010-2013 period

What a joke. AP is trying to give the impression that they're being "objective" here... while completely disregarding Obamacare and Lord knows what else.

That said, this should really tick off Obama's loyal supporters, since this would indicate that Obama failed to spend big on infrastructure, goodies for the poor, education, green energy and all the other things he promised to deliver on.

[FormerACLUmember]

I am unimpressed with the AP “exposing” anything.

The colossal bullsh*t claim by the Obama Regime that it is thrifty and reduced the deficit, is simple too outrageous for even the AP to do its customary cover-up.

[eclecticEel]

The AP tries gamely to make the Obama campaigns numbers work out (throwing out $1.5T in spending, ignoring the future costs of Obamacare) - and they can’t even do it.

[publius911]

If one assumes that TARP and the takeover of Fannie and Freddie by the government as one-time budgetary anomalies and remove them from calculations - an approach taken by Holtz-Eakin - you get the following picture:

How can anyone, anywhere "one time" just the interest on 4 Trillion$ in deficit spending?

I hope the MSM can elaborate on that.
"Remove it from the calculations," indeed!

[Rocky]

If one assumes that TARP and the takeover of Fannie and Freddie by the government as one-time budgetary anomalies

And let's exclude Obamacare because it doesn't kick in until 2014.

Totally unbiased reporting by AP, right? 3%, my eye. The only truthful thing they said was that any slowdown on spending was because the Republicans took the House in 2010.

[gakrak]

If Obama and the MSM told this to a jacka$$ the
Jacka$$ would kick their brains out. Amen

[BilLies]

“If one assumes that TARP and the takeover of Fannie and Freddie by the government as one-time budgetary anomalies.”

Kinda like saying:
If one assumes that Stanley Ann Dunham had not had a son named Obama his actual presence would be birth anomaly.