David Angelo

Economics can be confusing.
Paul Krugman isn't helping. I make sense of his nonsense and refute his claims - one post at a time!

Response to: The Obama Spending Non-Surge

Kruggers! You shifty little bugger!

Krugman, with all his Princeton professorial might, totally refutes any assertion that Obama has expanded government. NOT!

(What a handy little rhetorical device from the 90s!)

Krugman sells his terrible argument with a ridiculous graph that proves there’s no government expansion. Underneath it, he writes:

What isn’t there, no way, nohow, is a massive expansion of government, which is a figment of the right wing’s imagination.

Here’s what isn’t part of my imagination. George W. Bush greatly expanded the size of government. Even Democrats admit that (even if it means he was doing something they love).

For Bush’s first year in office, he added $73 billion to the budget. His second year, he added, $148 billion, then $149 billion, then $132 billion, then $179 billion, then $183 billion, then $73 billion, then $253 billion. source

And we all understand he was “expanding the government.” There’s no controversy to this fact.

During Barack Obama’s first year in office, the government increased spending $535 billion! His 2011 spending is expected to be $362 billion more than 2010. His own estimates say the government will spend $3.8 TRILLION this year. The most Bush ever spent in a year was $2.9 trillion in 2008. And we all accept that Bush expanded the size of government!

So how can Krugman, this Nobel-laureate, DENY that Obama is expanding government? It’s ridiculous!

When Obama was elected, total Federal debt was $10 trillion. Now it’s $15 trillion! It took the country 232 years to amass $10 trillion in debt. He added another 50% more in 3 years.

The “size” of the government isn’t measured in cubic feet or pounds. It’s measured in money. Obama is irrefutably spending MORE. For God’s sake; he’s proud of that! He says so! He even spends more on nukes! It’s totally irrational to deny the government is growing - which is why it’s so expected from Krugman.

Although, maybe all these pesky budget numbers from ever-growing government agencies are just a figment of the right wing’s imagination?


  1. dwangelo posted this