Government Consumption Growth is DOWN under Obama

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

Amazing but true... as soon as Obama got settled in the Oval Office the Republican dream of flat growth of government came to pass. Not that a single Republican alive recognizes the fact...

The "trick" here is that the chart is of government consumption. Not Federal government, all government.

All of our recent increases in Federal spending have merely shifted a burden from states to the federal government while we, nationally, have been flat on government contributions to demand. The "stimulus" was more like treading water... the federal government stepping in to pick up the slack from states and localities slashing services as their tax bases collapsed.

Here is government employment in America. It is down. D-O-W-N. The direction opposite up:


http://www.econbrowser.com/archives/2010/09/the_everexpandi.html

September 10, 2010, 4:15 pm
“Ever-expanding Government”
Paul Krugman

Menzie Chinn points out that government employment has not, in fact, soared under Obama; he gets the usual mass of hysterical comments accusing him of being naive, dishonest, whatever. Heh.

Here’s another one: compare real government purchases in stimulus-happy America and frugal, austere Germany... It’s worth noting that just to keep up with the trend in potential GDP, US government purchases would have to have risen about 6 percent over the period shown. As far as actual government spending on goods and services goes, as opposed to aid to individuals, we’ve had no stimulus at all — basically because of cutbacks at the state and local level.

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/10/ever-expanding-government/

[burnsei sensei]

1. Someone should brand this graph

onto Alan Simpson's ass.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

2. And thus it would be visible to people kissing it

[old mark]

3. Will we ever see this in the famous Liberal Media? (no)...rec....nt