Ken Carr's Daily Read

Q: How much has the federal debt gone up under Obama?

A: During his first three years in office, it rose $4.7 trillion, an increase of 45 percent. Partisan graphics circulating via email and Facebook are both incorrect.

FULL ANSWER

Both sides are circulating deceptions about the federal debt, judging by the many queries we get from our readers. So we’ll try to set the record straight here.

There’s no sugar-coating it, as some supporters of President Obama have tried to do. And the rapid rise in the debt is alarming enough without fabricating false statistics, as some Obama critics have done.

It’s not true, for example, that the debt has increased only 16 percent since Obama took office. That erroneous calculation originally came from the office of House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi. And — despite being corrected later — it has continued to circulate via email.

Even the corrected version, currently appearing on the site of the liberal group MoveOn.org and Pelosi’s Flickr site, is many months out of date as of this writing. It shows a 35 percent increase for Obama, which is now far too low.

And it’s also untrue — as claimed in a graphic widely circulated by email and in social media postings — that the debt has increased more under Obama than under all previous 43 presidents combined. In fact, as of Jan. 31, 2012, the rise under Obama had yet to surpass the rise under his predecessor, George W. Bush.

The figures in that graphic are pure fabrications, as anyone can easily confirm by plugging Obama’s inauguration date — Jan. 20, 2009 — in the Treasury Department’s handy “debt to the penny” website. That shows the nation’s total debt stood at $10.6 trillion on the day Obama took office (not $6.3 trillion), and it had increased to nearly $15.4 trillion by the end of January 2012 — a rise of more than $4.7 trillion in just over three years (not $6.5 trillion).

That’s a huge increase to be sure — 44.5 percent. And the Congressional Budget Office now projects that it will grow to more than $16 trillion by the end of the current fiscal year on Sept. 30. At that point, the debt will have increased by more dollars in Obama’s first four years than it did in George W. Bush’s entire eight-year tenure, when it rose by $4.9 trillion. The rise under Obama would then be the biggest dollar increase for any president in U.S. history.

Here is how the nation’s total debt has fared under the past several presidents, as of Jan. 31, 2012, in trillions of dollars. The percentage increases are given in parentheses.

Our chart looks much different from Pelosi’s, because ours shows the actual dollar increase, not just the percentage change. As can be seen here, Obama’s 45 percent rise is nearly equal in dollar terms to his predecessor’s 85 percent increase — because Obama started from a much higher base.

Similarly, had we based our chart on the rate of rise, it would show the debt rising much faster under Obama than it did under Bush, whose increase was spread over eight years. Other adjustments could be made to account for inflation. Indeed, one of the most meaningful ways to look at the debt is to measure it not just in raw dollars but in comparison with the economy — as a percentage of the gross domestic product.

In this chart, which we generated from the most recent historical data and projections (Table 7.1) from the Office of Management and Budget, it can be seen that the total federal debt in relation to the economy is reaching historically high levels — approaching levels not seen since World War II. But it can also be seen that the rise started long before Obama took office.

In fact, the upward trend began with Ronald Reagan’s fiscal 1982 budget, declined somewhat from fiscal 1997 through 2001, and resumed the upward climb with George W. Bush’s first budget in fiscal 2002 (which started Oct. 1, 2001).

And the rise accelerated as the economy slid into the worst recession since the Great Depression, starting in December 2007. As the economy shrank, the debt-to-GDP ratio jumped 5 percentage points in the fiscal year that started Oct. 1, 2007, and another 14.8 percentage points during the following year. Obama took office nearly one-third of the way into that 12-month period. At the time, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office was projecting the deficit for that fiscal year would be $1.2 trillion. It later rose to $1.4 trillion after enactment of Obama’s economic stimulus package, to be followed by back-to-back deficits of nearly $1.3 trillion in fiscal 2010 and $1.3 trillion again in fiscal 2011. CBO just projected the deficit for the current fiscal year, ending Sept. 30, will be $1.1 trillion.

A caution: The chart we’ve shown here is for total debt, including money the government owes to itself, chiefly through the Social Security trust funds. But a chart tracking only the debt owed to the public would show a similar shape. CBO projects that the debt owed to the public was nearly 68 percent of GDP in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, and will reach 73 percent this year and exceed 75 percent at the end of fiscal 2013.

We won’t attempt here to assess which side is more to blame for the mounting debt, or how much of the increase is Obama’s fault. Washington Post columnist Ezra Klein argues that the economic stimulus and other Obama policies account for just under $1 trillion of the debt added since he took office, while Bush added $5.1 trillion in his eight years — mostly due to tax cuts and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. On the other hand, former Washington Post reporter Eric Pianin and others fault Obama for not getting more strongly behind the recommendations of his own deficit-reduction commission more than a year ago. Obama agreed to extend Bush’s tax cuts for two years, even as his commission called for tax reform. And he attacked Republican proposals to hold down the cost of Medicare, despite the commission’s call to move beyond the “phantom savings” in his own health care law, savings the commission said “will never materialize.”

All we can do here is point to the correct figures for how much debt has piled up on Obama’s watch, and note that there is ample blame to go around. When the partisan deceptions on each side are disregarded, the plain fact remains that the debt has increased, for many years, under both Democratic and Republican presidents. And it is currently increasing rapidly, reaching historically high levels, while partisans continue to struggle over what to do about it.

– by Brooks Jackson

Sources

U.S. Treasury. “The Debt to the Penny and Who Holds It.” Online database. Accessed 2 Feb 2012.

Congressional Budget Office. “The Budget and Economic Outlook: Fiscal Years 2012 to 2022.” 31 Jan 2012.

Office of Management and Budget. “Historical Tables: Table 7.1—Federal Debt at the End of Year: 1940–2016.” 14 Feb 2011.

National Bureau of Economic Research. “US Business Cycle Expansions and Contractions.” 20 Sep 2010.

Congressional Budget Office. “The Budget and Economic Outlook: Fiscal Years 2009 to 2019.” 8 Jan 2009.

Klein, Ezra. “Doing the math on Obama’s deficits.” Washington Post. 2 Feb. 2012.

Pianin, Eric. “Super Flaw: “If Only Obama Had Upheld Bowles-Simpson.” Fiscal Times. 22 Nov 2011.

Dorning, Mike. “Obama Agrees to Extend Bush Tax Cuts for 2 Years.” Bloomberg News. 6 Dec 2010.

The National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform. “The Moment of Truth,” final report. Dec 2010.

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Keeping both sides honest

Sen. John McCain incorrectly claimed that earmarks nearly doubled from $7.8 billion to $14.5 billion in Newt Gingrich’s first two years as House speaker. Actually, the increase was about half that.

Furthermore, earmarks first peaked, then declined under Gingrich. By the final year of his speakership, earmarked spending was 20 percent higher than before, not double.

McCain is a longtime opponent of earmarks, which are pet projects added to annual appropriations bills at the request of members of Congress. McCain, who has endorsed former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney for president, has been making an issue of earmarks to help undermine Gingrich’s claim that he is a fiscal conservative. The Romney campaign has posted McCain’s critical remarks about earmarks on its website.

The Arizona senator’s latest comments came on “Meet the Press.”

McCain, Jan. 29: My problems with Newt have been over earmark spending, billions and billions and billions. They — when Newt Gingrich became speaker, they turned earmarks into an art form and it — as [Sen.] Tom Coburn says, it is the gateway to corruption. And we had members, former members of Congress in jail. Duke Cunningham, Bob Ney, Abramoff, all of this is because of the corruption that is bred by this outrageous, obscene corruption–earmark process. They went in his first year from $7.8 billion in earmarks to two [years] later to $14.5 billion in earmarks.

It’s true that spending on earmarks went up while Gingrich was speaker. But McCain is cherry-picking data to make it appear spending increased more than it actually did. McCain misled viewers of “Meet the Press” to believe that earmark spending rose 86 percent in Gingrich’s first two years — but the rise was actually 45 percent. Also, McCain ignores that such spending went down in Gingrich’s final two years, so the last budget passed when Gingrich was speaker represented a modest 20 percent increase over four years.

The senator relied on data compiled by Citizens Against Government Waste. That data show that Congress spent $7.8 billion on earmarks in fiscal year 1994, $10 billion in fiscal year 1995, $12.5 billion in fiscal year 1996 and $14.5 billion in fiscal year 1997.

But here’s McCain’s problem: Gingrich became speaker in January 1995, and the first set of annual appropriations bills to be passed under his leadership was for the fiscal year 1996 budget — which congressional historians will remember triggered a battle that led to two partial government shutdowns in November and December of 1995. Fiscal years run from Oct. 1 to Sept. 30, so the fiscal year 1996 budget started Oct. 1, 1995, and ended Sept. 30, 1996. In order to show the growth in spending under Gingrich, one would have to compare Gingrich-era spending bills to the fiscal year 1995 spending bills, which were signed by President Clinton prior to the November 1994 election that gave Republicans control of the House and elevated Gingrich to speaker.

Earmarks totaled $12.5 billion in fiscal year 1996, the first budget under Gingrich. That’s an increase of 25 percent compared with the prior year’s budget bills ($10 billion in earmarks in fiscal year 1995). Earmarks increased again in fiscal year 1997 — reaching a high of $14.5 billion in the Gingrich era. That’s an increase of 45 percent over two years, not 86 percent.

But then spending on earmarks started to decline — a point that McCain ignores. Earmarks dropped to $13.2 billion in fiscal year 1998 and $12 billion in fiscal year 1999, according to the CAGW database. Gingrich left Congress in January 1999. The fiscal year 1999 spending bills were all signed into law in 1998, making the FY1999 budget Gingrich’s last as speaker.

So, McCain is right in that earmarks did reach $14.5 billion while Gingrich was speaker. But, in fairness to Gingrich, McCain was wrong to use $7.8 billion as his baseline to show the growth in spending. Plus, earmarks did drop to $12 billion before Gingrich left office.

McCain wasn’t alone in misusing CAGW’s data. ABC News in December and the National Review in January both mistakenly said that earmarks under Gingrich “nearly doubled” (National Review) or “roughly doubled” (ABC News). Both cited the CAGW database.

ABC News, Dec. 15, 2011: ABC News has taken a look back at Gingrich’s record on the issue of so-called earmarks — a common congressional practice of inserting taxpayer money for special projects into big appropriations bills — and found a startling spike under Gingrich’s leadership as speaker. Not only did earmark spending in Congress increase between 1994 and 1998, when he departed, the overall dollar amount roughly doubled.

National Review, Jan. 27: Earmarks nearly doubled under Gingrich’s tenure as speaker, according to an analysis done by CAGW. In fiscal year 1994, $7.8 billion in earmarks was included in the budget. By fiscal year 1997, that number had skyrocketed to $14.5 billion. The funds allotted to earmarks tapered off a little by 1999, when earmarks totaled $12 billion, but they would never again drop to 1994 levels. The 2010 budget included $16.5 billion in earmarks, according to CAGW.

Both news organizations made the same mistake McCain did in using fiscal year 1994 as the baseline, instead of fiscal year 1995. In addition, ABC News used fiscal year 1998 as Gingrich’s last, when in fact he was still speaker when the fiscal year 1999 spending bills passed Congress and were signed into law, as we said earlier in this article.

Again, this is not to say that earmarks did not go up under Gingrich’s leadership or that he didn’t have a role in their expanded use. In fact, CAGW President Tom Schatz wrote in a 2010 blog post that Gingrich was responsible for making earmarks more accessible to rank-and-file members, instead of just leadership. Schatz writes that “one of the driving factors for the dramatic increase came from a request by then-Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) to the Appropriations subcommittee chairmen (known as ‘Cardinals’) to add projects to their respective bills in the districts of vulnerable Republican freshmen.”

Steve Ellis, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, agreed with Schatz. He told us in an email that Gingrich “took earmarks from being the province of the powerful appropriators and shared the spoils with rank and file lawmakers.”

Even so, the true explosion in the growth of earmarks occurred in the early to mid-2000s — after Gingrich left office. After falling to $12 billion in fiscal year 1999, spending on earmarks steadily climbed and reached a peak of $29 billion in fiscal year 2006, according to CAGW’s database. That’s an increase of 142 percent in seven years.

– Eugene Kiely

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Keeping both sides honest