The good folks over at Foxnews.com have a real doozy of an article up today titled Obama Shatters Spending Record for First-Year Presidents.
How bad is this article? It's so bad that the Daniel Mitchell at The Cato Institute comes to Obama defense. Not without a few pot shots of course, but to his defense.
Here is the crux of the hitjob:
In fiscal 2009 the federal government spent $3.52 trillion -- $2.8 trillion in 2000 dollars, which sets a benchmark for comparison. That fiscal year covered the last three-and-a-half months of George W. Bush's term and the first eight-and-a-half months of Obama's.
That price tag came with a $1.4 trillion deficit, nearly $1 trillion more than last year. The overall budget was about a half-trillion more than Bush's for 2008, his final full fiscal year in office.
Wow that Obama sure is the tax-and-spend liberal that they all warned us about. It's clear as day.
Except the FY09 budget was signed, sealed, and delivered by the previous regime. Fox News doesn't even bother to talk about that. In fact that down right imply that Obama had the power to alter the budget that was already in place.
God Forbid that the man took actions to pull our economy back from the brink of a great depression. Heck, I even remember the great purveyor of truth, Sarah Palin, telling the country that we were headed into a great depression so they can't even deny that.
Of course this article is conveniently times by the Karl Rove Op-ed in Rupert's WSJ where he makes this claim:
When Mr. Obama was sworn into office the federal deficit for this year stood at $422 billion. At the end of October, it stood at $1.42 trillion.
Well, gee, that can't possibly be because Obama took over 4 months into FY09 could it? Let's do some rough multiplication on your $422. Let's multiply it times 3 there Karl for some honesty...$1.266 Trillion. That's basically where the FY09 deficit would be had Obama of spent not one Indian-head penny on anything since taking office.
The Cato blogger concludes that Obama is responsible for about 4% of the FY09 budget deficit and ends with this analogy before getting one last dig on on Obama:
Let’s use an analogy. Obama’s FY2009 performance is like a relief pitcher who enters a game in the fourth inning trailing 19-0 and allows another run to score. The extra run is nothing to cheer about, of course, but fans should be far more angry with the starting pitcher.
He even includes a pie chart for those who don't want or can't read.
You know Fox News and the WSJ are down right dishonest when the right-wing Cato Institute can't even swallow their dishonesty.
It's down right sad that an Australian has hijacked the political discourse in this country and so many people buy his nonesense - hook, line, and sinker.
Post Script: And Oh God, I just noticed this final passage from the Faux News article:
Obama's first-year budget, adjusted for inflation, is about five times that. His 2009 budget is also close to 21 percent of that for Clinton's eight years in office
It was Bush's FY 2009 budget you assholes.
Emphasis mine. This is sheer irresponsibility. This is a complete and total drive-by shooting at the President that is based on nothing. This is straight up GOP propaganda.