Hey Big Spender, Spend a Little Time with Me

This chart from Forbes magazine, a battalion of conservative values says volumes.

One thing all new presidents have to deal with in their first year in office of the spending practices of the previous president and that was certainly true for President Obama and the attacks on his spending to begin he presidency. But taking a longer look changes things significantly.

Courtesy of Marketwatch-

·       In fiscal 2010 (the first Obama budget) spending fell 1.8% to $3.46 trillion.

·        In fiscal 2011, spending rose 4.3% to $3.60 trillion.

·       In fiscal 2012, spending is set to rise 0.7% to $3.63 trillion, according to the Congressional Budget Office’s estimate of the budget that was agreed to last August.

·       Finally in fiscal 2013 — the final budget of Obama’s term — spending is scheduled to fall 1.3% to $3.58 trillion. Read the CBO’s latest budget outlook.

Rich Ungar who wrote the article with this information for Forbes notes that conservatives may want to credit the GOP especially the Republican House of Representatives for these reductions. Fine, but Ungar points out that you can’t have it both ways.

Nevertheless Obama has the smallest spending record since Eisenhower.

Now I have often gone back to the Presidency of Ronald Reagan as the beginning of the financial inequality we have in this land, which I believe is true. He made promises that could not possibly work but sold them to the public and then spent like crazy and began this whole trickle down economy that has messed us up ever since. Couple that with the ill-advised Iraq war under Bush basically paid for by borrowing, accounts for our huge deficits for which Obama gets the blame; or as Ungar says, you can’t have it both ways.

But there are other factors also at play over the last 3 plus decades. First, Lyndon Johnson pushed through a lot of important civil right legislation, which was of great benefit for the country and especially minorities. But he knew that it would weaken the Democratic Party, which relied on the South for majorities in congress that Democrats had enjoyed for some time.

Coupled with that the Democratic Party didn’t have a clue as to how to organize against Reagan. Reagan may be called the great communicator but I could never see why unless you buy into simplistic answers for complex issues, which folk are prone to do. But I think what really happened to change things was William Brock who in essence remade the Republican Party. He did what Republicans do, raised money, he just did it better, with mass mailings thus he was able to outspend Mondale and other Democrats by a huge margin. Plus the unions, big money backers for Democrats historically were losing power and numbers and money so corporate America could outspend them two or three to one. Also Republicans contributed to a central fund where they could back specific candidates to gain control of important and vulnerable congressional seats and the same was true for state campaigns. On the other hand for Democrats it was each candidate for himself, with some candidates ending up with surpluses and others with debt. In fact, Democrats as a whole could not raise enough money to compete and so they borrowed leaving huge debts that had to be paid before the next campaign. Bad policy. Charles Manatt was the chair of the Democratic Party from 1981 to 1985; he didn’t do well nor his successor Paul Kirk.

Despite majority of party members in the Democratic Party vs. the Republican Party, they were out organized and defeated. Plus there were a lot of moderate Republicans in those days. Better funded campaigns could get the independent swing votes and thus victories in the congress Republicans continue to enjoy.

Things have changed somewhat. Obama did the Internet fund raising and beat the Republicans at their own game in fund raising. But now the Republican Party has become so extremely and inflexibly conservative it is difficult for anything to be done in congress – gridlock.

In my opinion even though Democrats have more popular support the Republicans have a bigger political war chest and better overall strategy for working on key elections. If the 99% find a voice and a better organization then the game will change significantly but right now the cards are stacked against it.

The figures at the beginning of this article are illuminating but the conservatives make them sound the opposite of what they are very successfully.

As P.T. Barnum (actually David Hannum) said, “There’s a sucker born every minute.