What do you think of this "factoid":
Every Democratic president since Jimmy Carter left a smaller deficit than he inherited (including Obama).
Every Republican president since Dwight Eisenhower left a bigger one.
Does this: annoy you, anger you, surprise you?
Discuss!
One facet of "factoids" is that they are usually not encumbered by context. ie. the details.
As Wilderness stated, there is a lot more to the picture than just the "impression" given by the factoid.
For instance; considering the very similar wording;
"... In my lifetime, every Democratic President has left office with a smaller deficit than he inherited, and every Republican President except Nixon has left office with a larger deficit than he inherited. " source: U.S. Federal Deficits, Presidents, and Congress by Stephen Bloch
I may have stumbled across the report you drew your factoid from, or perhaps it could have been the report someone else used to generate the "whatever" that restated the factoid you used.
ps. it does seem to be a well-considered assessment of the data
This same report included the following:
"Table 2: The Top Ten Deficit Years
I have in my hand a copy of tonight's Top Ten list....
2008-2009, at $933 billion - Democrat President*
2009-2010, at $694 billion - Democrat President*
2011-2012, at $424 billion - Democrat President*
1943-1944, at $361 billion - Democrat President*
1942-1943, at $337 billion - Democrat President*
2010-2011, at $310 billion - Democrat President*
1944-1945, at $287 billion - Democrat President*
2007-2008, at $262 billion - Republican President*
1985-1986, at $245 billion - Republican President*
1990-1991, at $235 billion - Republican President*
Again, 2012-2013 is probably somewhere on that list, but I don't know exactly where because I don't know how to correct for the Treasury department's "extraordinary measures" to stay below the debt ceiling. " *this author, (GA) added the president's party data
This "factoid shows that Democrat Presidents own the top seven of ten largest one year deficits in history.
Hmmm... If this impression were accepted as it stands it would seem to be a stark contrast to the "impression" given by your original factoid.
Ah hell, who cares about the details anyway, talking points are what really matter, or else you would have included some context. Right?
To answer your question, I am neither, annoyed, angered, or surprised. Just a little more informed, because I almost always learn something when looking at the mosaics factoids are plucked from.
GA
Seems to me that among the relevant takeaways with both sets of "factoids" is that President Obama entered his first year as president with a huge deficit and it's gone down each year. This would seem to be in stark contrast to GOP criticisms that he's spending out-of-control.
I completely agree with Wilderness that if the funding for Obamacare is being pushed far down the line, that severely skews any assessment of Obama's deficit spending. And that would apply to any president whose budget does such a thing.
The issue of the deficit Obama inherited in his first year in office falls into an area also addressed by the report I linked to.
Extreme conditions, ie. wars, recessions, bailouts, etc. can drastically skew the appearance of the data. (as you indicate) The report's author included a secondary assessment of these type deficits by averaging the term years. I didn't go back and dig, but Obama isn't the only president this has happened to.
As for his declining deficits, (I bet this will get a rise...), a major part of those reductions were the repayment of TARP funds - which were structured to achieve those repayments by.... wait for it.... "W!" Even the first $25 billion of the auto bailouts.
Sorry, could not resist that poke in the eye. I am hopeful that Pres. Obama's deficit reduction trend continues. But, like the original factoid, there is a whole story behind your statement concerning his reductions. And I do not believe any of that story vindicates him of the charge of "over spending."
To get a broader picture of why I say that... look past the deficits to the national Debt. Because that too is a whole 'nuther story.
GA
There's a little more to the story, as well. That he also inherited a war that had to be paid for, for instance, as well as the highest one year deficits in the history of the world. More telling, seems to me, would be the total deficit accumulated in that administration as well as what they left the next president with in the way of deficit or hidden spending (such as Obamacare).
You have a point. Just like it's not how many executive orders a president issues compared to other presidents, it's how many were unconstitutional, the size of the deficit at the end of a term doesn't tell the whole story and the size of the deficit is not a function of the current administration only. Things are always more complicated than cherry picked statistics.
Congress votes on the budget. The President doesn't. Deficit, good or bad is CONGRESS fault... not the President. The President can only sign what Congress puts in front of him. He can veto a budget, but if Congress really wants it, they can override him. The President cannot override Congress except with an executive order. But even that is subject to being voided by an independent piece of legislation in Congress.
Don't get me wrong.. the president has power, but the ultimate authority is Congress. Every budget ever placed in front of the president to sign has first been approved by Congress. Any fault or credit should go to Congress.
We should be worried about what Congress is doing, not the President.
The data I discussed, and which I think might have been the "factoid" source, included Congressional make-up in its evaluation.
But relative to your comment... I think the way Obamacare was passed shows your point to be less than accurate. Congress followed the President's lead - so it was on him - it was his expenditure, his deficit.
FDR's programs are another example of Congress following a president's lead. Congress is complicit, but it is the president's deficit.
GA
Obama works for the Democrats, and HE followed THEIR lead. They've been trying to get something like this passed for a while. Congress didn't do what the President wanted. Obama did what the Democrats wanted.
Tomato or tomahto, The president is the leader of their party. So isn't it the same-same?
It still wasn't Congress' deficit.
GA
No. People in tje government get aesy with too much because they blame others. Fix the presidentcy and you only fix one man. He is still beholden to the party and Congress can still do what they want. We need to fix the parties, and to do that we focus on Congress. Get Congress to start behaving itself and the prez van go monkey shit Fascist and he can only do so much damage.
Well, since we are off the topic of presidential deficits, as was the point of the OP, I can agree with what you say here. What we have is definitely a bottom-up problem.
GA
First step in the process is for the president to propose a budget to congress. It is HIS budget, no one elses.
The budget can't pass without Congress approval. Period. There is no "reverse veto" power of the president. He says "How about this?" and Congress says yes or no.
Has never passed without presidential approval, either. Technically possible, but has never been done.
With the net effect being Congress says "How about this?" and the president says yes or no.
That's only because of the infighting inside Congress. I don't want a government that depends on not being able to get things done for not doing bad things. The solution is the same in either case: clean house in Congress.
I work on a production line. I'm supposed to check parts for defects. If I go to QC and say "Is this good?" and they pass it, if it turns out that the part is bad... QC catches hell, not me, because they approved it. If the President goes to Congress and says "Is this the budget we want?" and Congress says "Yes" They should catch hell if it's a stupid budget. Just because they never exert their authority, doesn't absolve them of the responsibility for HAVING that authority. It actually makes it worse because they CAN fix the problem (or at least try) and they don't.
Well, not too long ago, half of Congress told the other half "Here is the budget we want; pass it or the country shuts down!". And the other half said "Here is the budget WE want; pass it or the country shuts down!". And the country shut down.
Whereupon the president, in his infinite wisdom, jumped into the fray and began doing the most stupid thing possible; selectively shutting down the parts of government that make a profit. National parks that charge a fee. Private business, leasing public land to operate on. Closing the parts that would hurt people the worst. All in a political game to get the budget HE wanted while blaming it on someone else.
Yeah, they CAN fix problems, they just won't. Their individual vision of what will bring them the most power/money always overrides what the country needs.
And Congress can (and does) propose their own budgets. They also alter the Presidents budget in committee. I don't ever remember them simply rubber stamping what the President proposed, even if he was a member of the majority party.
by Tim Mitchell 60 minutes ago
We all know it will be party-line loyalty for most voters. According to Pew Research, six percent of voters for the 2022 elections crossed party lines. For the mythical independent voter, it is a binary choice for the President. We are fortunate to be able to assess two Presidents based on criteria...
by freddykrueger 13 years ago
Is it like bush losing 750,000 jobs a month or creating 290,000 jobs a month under obama.I understand it's taking a long time but nothing comes fast it all takes time.I remember during the campaign everyone said we needed a change yet now they disagree.It was the measures this president took that...
by Doug Hughes 12 years ago
My Hat's off to Steve Benen for this column from which I post a portion."1980: Ronald Reagan runs for president, promising a balanced budget 1981 -1989: With support from congressional Republicans, Reagan runs enormous deficits, adds $2 trillion to the debt. 1993: Bill Clinton passes economic...
by Jason Menayan 13 years ago
Who's to blame?
by American View 12 years ago
I cannot wait to hear the responses on this one. A day after Obama was threatening how he will not pay the armed services, not pay Social Security, not fund Medicare, and more. "we do not have the money to pay these things We need to rasie taxes" I agree with him on eliminating tax breaks...
by Mike Russo 6 years ago
Isn't interesting at the same time Jeff Sessions has said that he talked to Russia, Trump is accusing Obama of wire tapping him? And Trump has no evidence to support his claims. I believe this is another one of Trump's distractions to take the heat off of him and Jeff Sessions for...
Copyright © 2024 The Arena Media Brands, LLC and respective content providers on this website. HubPages® is a registered trademark of The Arena Platform, Inc. Other product and company names shown may be trademarks of their respective owners. The Arena Media Brands, LLC and respective content providers to this website may receive compensation for some links to products and services on this website.
Copyright © 2024 Maven Media Brands, LLC and respective owners.
As a user in the EEA, your approval is needed on a few things. To provide a better website experience, hubpages.com uses cookies (and other similar technologies) and may collect, process, and share personal data. Please choose which areas of our service you consent to our doing so.
For more information on managing or withdrawing consents and how we handle data, visit our Privacy Policy at: https://corp.maven.io/privacy-policy
Show DetailsNecessary | |
---|---|
HubPages Device ID | This is used to identify particular browsers or devices when the access the service, and is used for security reasons. |
Login | This is necessary to sign in to the HubPages Service. |
Google Recaptcha | This is used to prevent bots and spam. (Privacy Policy) |
Akismet | This is used to detect comment spam. (Privacy Policy) |
HubPages Google Analytics | This is used to provide data on traffic to our website, all personally identifyable data is anonymized. (Privacy Policy) |
HubPages Traffic Pixel | This is used to collect data on traffic to articles and other pages on our site. Unless you are signed in to a HubPages account, all personally identifiable information is anonymized. |
Amazon Web Services | This is a cloud services platform that we used to host our service. (Privacy Policy) |
Cloudflare | This is a cloud CDN service that we use to efficiently deliver files required for our service to operate such as javascript, cascading style sheets, images, and videos. (Privacy Policy) |
Google Hosted Libraries | Javascript software libraries such as jQuery are loaded at endpoints on the googleapis.com or gstatic.com domains, for performance and efficiency reasons. (Privacy Policy) |
Features | |
---|---|
Google Custom Search | This is feature allows you to search the site. (Privacy Policy) |
Google Maps | Some articles have Google Maps embedded in them. (Privacy Policy) |
Google Charts | This is used to display charts and graphs on articles and the author center. (Privacy Policy) |
Google AdSense Host API | This service allows you to sign up for or associate a Google AdSense account with HubPages, so that you can earn money from ads on your articles. No data is shared unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy) |
Google YouTube | Some articles have YouTube videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy) |
Vimeo | Some articles have Vimeo videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy) |
Paypal | This is used for a registered author who enrolls in the HubPages Earnings program and requests to be paid via PayPal. No data is shared with Paypal unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy) |
Facebook Login | You can use this to streamline signing up for, or signing in to your Hubpages account. No data is shared with Facebook unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy) |
Maven | This supports the Maven widget and search functionality. (Privacy Policy) |
Marketing | |
---|---|
Google AdSense | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Google DoubleClick | Google provides ad serving technology and runs an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Index Exchange | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Sovrn | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Facebook Ads | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Amazon Unified Ad Marketplace | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
AppNexus | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Openx | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Rubicon Project | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
TripleLift | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Say Media | We partner with Say Media to deliver ad campaigns on our sites. (Privacy Policy) |
Remarketing Pixels | We may use remarketing pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to advertise the HubPages Service to people that have visited our sites. |
Conversion Tracking Pixels | We may use conversion tracking pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to identify when an advertisement has successfully resulted in the desired action, such as signing up for the HubPages Service or publishing an article on the HubPages Service. |
Statistics | |
---|---|
Author Google Analytics | This is used to provide traffic data and reports to the authors of articles on the HubPages Service. (Privacy Policy) |
Comscore | ComScore is a media measurement and analytics company providing marketing data and analytics to enterprises, media and advertising agencies, and publishers. Non-consent will result in ComScore only processing obfuscated personal data. (Privacy Policy) |
Amazon Tracking Pixel | Some articles display amazon products as part of the Amazon Affiliate program, this pixel provides traffic statistics for those products (Privacy Policy) |
Clicksco | This is a data management platform studying reader behavior (Privacy Policy) |