It's Really Time To Combat the Lies

The past few weeks I've spent an incredible amount of time trying to get Republicans to understand that President Obama has not spent as much money as you may think.

Sure he has spent a lot. No one is denying that.  But he hasn't spent more than every president combined like the nut job GOP keeps saying.  Neither has he spent more than Bush did in 8 years.  What is frustrating about this stupid argument is that it's so easy to just go and check for yourself who has spent what.  A very easy Wikipedia search clearly shows total outlays by president. 

The United States has operated under two budgets submitted by Obama, 2010 & 2011 respectively.  Total outlays for those budgets were $7.4 trillion.  That's a lot of dang money no doubt.  But more than every president combined and more than Bush did in 8 years?  Not even close.

As Wiki clearly outlines, Bush submitted 8 budgets totaling $20.4 trillion.  Continuing his pace, Obama will surely outspend Bush by year six.  But that's always the case with every president.  George W. outspent Clinton.  Clinton outspent the first Bush and Reagan.  Every president has always outspent his predecessor going all the way back to WWII. 

This is easy, easy stuff.  But to Republicans it's liberal propaganda.  They really believe Obama created the debt mess we are in today.  They really believe he has outspent every president combined.  They really believe everything is his fault.  So how could something so easy to figure out on your own be so confusing to Republicans.  Here's your answer:

Tonight on Fox Business' Freedom Watch, host Andrew Napolitano made the startling claim that "the government [is] now spending 65 percent of the gross domestic product":

This is false. This year, the federal government will spend about $3.7 trilliion, which is around 25 percent of the current U.S. GDP of roughly $15 trillion. State and local spending is an additional $2.1 trillion, but adding that to federal spending gets you to just below 40 percent of GDP. That's still quite a bit less than Napolitano's 65 percent.

For those thinking "Hey, maybe he just misspoke," a huge graphic that appeared behind Napolitano as he said it made things all too clear:

There you go people.  Right there.  They watch Fox News and don't bother to check it for themselves.  They believe every word they are told and then run into the public repeating their lies.  When you confront them with real facts like I have these last few weeks, they run and hide or come up with even more completely untrue lies about the current president.

They are lied to daily.  Even worse, the lies become engrained in them and it creates the situation we have today with the debt ceiling fiasco.