The President’s Proboscis Problem

If, like Pinocchio, a politician’s proboscis grew each time he lied, the world would be overtaken by noses flopping about everywhere.

Congressional Budget Office figures, cited by the Wall Street Journal, are finessed. US debt problem is worse than CBO projections.

Still the amount of lying Obama manages is quite impressive:

Obama’s claim that “federal spending since [he] took office has risen at the slowest pace of any President in almost 60 years,” is audacious. (And yes, Bush set the example.) It’s “like an alcoholic claiming that his rate of drinking has slowed because he had only 22 beers today and 25 beers yesterday. (WSJ)

Notwithstanding that GDP measures include the Brownian Motion of debt growth, “Prior to Mr. Obama, the U.S. had not spent more than 23.5% of GDP—that was in 1983, amid the Reagan defense buildup—since the end of World War II. Yet Mr. Obama has managed to exceed that four years in a row: 25.2% in 2009, 24.1% in 2010 and 2011, and an estimated 24.3% in 2012, up from a range between 18%-21% from 1994-2008.”

Mr. Obama can fairly blame $1 trillion or so of the $5 trillion debt increase of the last four years on Mr. Bush. But what about the other $4 trillion? Debt held by the public now stands at 74.2% of the economy, up from 40.5% at the end of 2008—and rising rapidly.