Washington Post columnist Catherine Rampell and New Orleans Advocate opinion writer Mark Ballard wrote related columns in the Advocate dated 1/26 and 1/29 concerning the GOP controlled U.S. House demanding the Biden administration to cut spending before they agree to raise the debt ceiling. The House even passed legislation that would roll back spending already approved by congress since Biden's election. The article rightly points outs that the GOP cannot stipulate what should be cut.
Both writers seem to be ignorant of the federal budget and federal spending because they enable the GOP talking points that the democratic party are the big spenders and that is an absolute lie and opinion writers should know that and inform their readers. The Office of Management and Budget and the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) publish the official federal budget numbers which are available to the public and journalists and it tells the story how the GOP are the party of big spenders and not the democratic party.
Those in the media regularly publish the talking point of the GOP that spending under the Biden administration is out of control and massive. But the media lacks the character to report that total federal spending at the end of President Biden's first fiscal year that ended 9/30/22 was down 8% from Trump's last fiscal year of federal spending. Total federal spending in Trump's last fiscal year was $6.8 trillion. It was $6.2 trillion in Biden's first fiscal year. The federal deficit at the end of Trump's last fiscal year was $2.7 trillion. It was $1.3 trillion at the end of Biden's first fiscal year, a reduction of 50%.
In the past 42 years the largest increase in total federal spending for Presidential terms are as follows: Reagan, 8 fiscal years up 75%; Bush 43 8 fiscal years up 61%; Trump 4 fiscal years up 46%; Bush 41 4 fiscal years up 41%; Clinton 8 fiscal years up 28%; Obama 8 fiscal years 25%. And going back past those 42 years the numbers change little. In the past 60 years, year to year federal spending decreased only 4 times. It took place 3 times on Obama's watch and one time on Biden's watch.
During the past 70 years, the national debt increased during the following President's fiscal years in office at the below percentage rate. Reagan 186%. George W. Bush 105%. Nixon/Ford 98%. Obama 70%. George H.W. Bush 54%. Carter 43%. Trump 41%. Clinton 31%. Kennedy/Johnson 18% and Eisenhower 8%. Years of precedent and facts tell the story of a GOP that has a huge spending problem and the creation of debt, while the democratic party has been the most fiscal responsible party.
The title of Catherine's column was, "Can Republicans Balance The Budget." Well, facts and precedent tells us the last republican administration to balance the federal budget was Dwight Eisenhower in 1960, over 60 years ago so Catherine could have answered her own question. During that same period of time two democratic Presidents balanced 5 budgets, LBJ balanced one and Clinton balanced four.
Opinion writers and jounalists had many years to correct the GOP's talking points of democratic administrations being the big spenders but choose instead to enable them and publish the falsehoods. In other words, their motto of informing the people is a fairy tale. So, stay tuned to Politidose, your daily dose of political commentary to understand the facts.
This commentary written by Joe Lorio
Note: All numbers above taken from the records of the CBO, Office of Management and Budget or the Treasury department. The numbers that spell out the percentages have been published in previous Politidose commentary over the past 9 years. The official government word for spending is OUTLAYS.
