Holy sh*t you may actually be starting to understand the game! It's literally a non-stop game of yabut. Ya but if I take out (fill in the blank) and use only (fill in the year) as a basis and then ignore (fill in the blank) then my (party|candidate) looks pretty damn good huh?!?!?
So I'll counter part of your yabut with this snippet:
Note as well that President Reagan didnât just go along with the wild spending binge of the previous Democratic Congress for fiscal year 1981 when he came into office on January 20 of that year. Almost no one remembers now the much vilified at the time 1981 Reagan budget cuts, his first major legislative initiative. Then Democrat Rep. Phil Gramm joined with Ohio Republican Del Latta to push through the Democratic House $31 billion in Reagan proposed budget cuts to the fiscal year 1981 budget, which totaled $681 billion, resulting in a cut of nearly 5% in that budget. Obama could have done the exact same thing when he entered office in January, 2009, even more so with the Congress totally controlled by his own party at the time.
Reagan then ramped up the spending cuts from there. In nominal terms, non-defense discretionary spending actually declined by 7.1% from 1981 to 1982. But roaring inflation at the time actually masks the true magnitude of the Reagan spending cut achievement. In constant dollars, non-defense discretionary spending declined by 14.4% from 1981 to 1982, and by 16.8% from 1981 to 1983. Moreover, in constant dollars, this non-defense discretionary spending never returned to its 1981 level for the rest of Reaganâs two terms! By 1988, this spending was still down 14.4% from its 1981 level in constant dollars.
Even with the Reagan defense buildup, which, remember, won the Cold War without firing a shot, total federal spending as a percent of GDP declined from a high of 23.5% of GDP in 1983 to 21.3% in 1988 and 21.2% in 1989. Thatâs a real reduction in the size of government relative to the economy of 10%, a huge achievement.
In sharp contrast to Reagan, Obamaâs first major legislative initiative was the so-called stimulus, which increased future federal spending by nearly a trillion dollars, the most expensive legislation in history up till that point. We know now, as thinking people knew at the time, that this record shattering spending bill only stimulated government spending, deficits and debt. Contrary to official Democrat Keynesian witchcraft, you donât promote economic recovery, growth and prosperity by borrowing a trillion dollars out of the economy to spend a trillion dollars back into it.
It's been well overdone but the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.
). You are completely missing the point. The first glaring "error" Nutting made was to put Obama at 1.4%, error in quotes as I suspect that was no error at all! How do I trust the validity of any of the other numbers? Apparently you do really enjoy the game of yabut.