I need some help regarding Bush vs. Obama spending.

[driver8]

I need a decent, non-partisan source that will provide some information regarding the spending by the Bush administration and the spending of Obama.

I am arguing with some freepers (surprise) and they keep throwing out the figure of 10 Trillion dollars that Obama has committed to spending. I cannot find this anywhere.

Thanks for your help!

[JuniperLea]

1. I don't think the numbers matter...

What matters is that Bush greased the slippery slope to hell, and he broke our economy. There would have been no hope unless Obama at least tried to stimulate the economy again. It was a damned if we do, damned if we don't situation. We're showing signs of pulling out. That's good enough for anyone without an MBA.

[theoldman]

2. Here is the shortest answer I can think of.

Reagan blew five trillion on the military without raising taxes to pay for it. Bush blew five trillion on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Obama is trying to get us out of the hole by a stimulus package by rescuing several companies to prevent the total bankruptcy of the US. The major difference is that Obama will raise taxes on the rich to help pay for these items. Remember also that we still have to pay for the two wars.

[TheKentuckian]

3. Bush wasting tax dollars on nothing, Obama investing tax money into our own country

You're dealing with people that see nothing but spending and could care less if anything meaningful is purchased. In fact they only want money to be wasted to hobble the government, any useful spending is a nail in their coffin.

[gratuitous]

4. There's the Congressional Budget Office

But one thing to keep in mind is that all through the Bush years, the cost of prosecuting the Iraq and Afghanistan invasions and occupations was kept "off budget" and these colossal expenses were funded through supplemental appropriations. With the new administration, in order to present a fairer picture of the actual outlays by the government, Obama included the costs of Iraq and Afghanistan in the federal budget. So just be aware that when you locate some numbers, you are probably going to be looking at and comparing apples and oranges.

The $10 trillion number comes from the same place as the Republican numbers for Social Security outlays. Which is to say, Fantasyland. When Bush wanted to reform Social Security in 2005, his mouthpieces all used some fantastic number like $75 trillion dollars as an unfunded mandate. Reporters, being the numerically illiterate bunch that they are, generally repeated the number without inquiring where the hell it came from. It came from an estimate of Social Security outlays basically to the end of time, without reckoning that any current recipients would ever die and that all current contributors to the system would start receiving full benefits at age 62.

As for your correspondents on the other board, the short, correct response is to their $10 trillion number is, as usual, "Prove it." Where did they get that number? What does it represent? Is that a one-year outlay (unlikely), or the cumulative cost over a decade for something or other? If you proceed from the premise that they're lying and every word of their posts has to be independently verified (including the words "the" and "and"), you'll be way ahead of the game.

[bamacrat]

5. Part of it has to do with the fact that Bush didnt count the Iraq/Afghanistan wars in his budget.

Obama is, that alone is an extra 700 billion a year that was previously not counted but was still being spent. Also a fun little fact, Obamas plan will take the debt to about 15 Trillion, McCains would have made it nearly 17 Trillion. I know in a game of Trillions one and a half isnt much but...