Those Stubborn Facts

I always love doing posts like the one I did yesterday with the Quick Budget Facts.  Posts like those are jaw dropping for Republicans.  They illustrate the exact opposite of what their Fox News teevee sets are telling them.  When they read that the deficit is smaller now than when Obama took office, they go into conniptions.  They cannot comprehend such logic.  It's like telling them Paul Bunyan dug out the Grand Canyon.  Wait, they actually might believe something like that.

Freedom Fighter Kristen Billy

Then there are those, like Kristen Billy, who think I'm secretly fudging numbers with some sort of "mix metrics" of foolry.  Because, in his world,  by mixing metrics I've not portrayed The Truth as delivered to him by Fox News.  My intention to trick readers into thinking George Bush and Ronald Reagan both increased the deficit, the federal debt and are responsible for huge chunks of financing that debt in today's budget didn't succeed with Kristen.  Oh no, he's way too smart for that.  Sean Hannity tells him he is.

By saying Bush increased spending by 32% or that Reagan increased it by 21.5%, I've formulated some sort of liberal trick to disguise the fact that it was actually Obama that did all that.  But, according to Kristen's comment, if I keep everything relative to GDP, like saying as a percentage of GDP Reagan increased the federal debt by 20.6% and Bush increased it by 27.8% it's all okay.  Well it's okay until I say that Obama hasn't increased it by near as much as either of them.  Saying that only proves I hate America.  In Kristen's world, Obama has spent more money than all presidents combined.  So naturally he's increased the debt more than Bush or Reagan.  Reality says otherwise but why should we care about facts?

Then Kristen lays out the huge kicker.  The moment of Total Truth that judges how he votes.  "I  just hope Obama can bring down the average deficit during his years in office close to what Bush did. If he could bring down his average deficit to Bush's, I'd vote for his re-election," says Kristen Billy.  This qualifies as total nutjob status if anyone is keeping score.

I think what Kristen is saying is that the average annual deficit for Bush's 8 years is $611 billion, as if that is something to brag about.  If Obama could just get the average deficit to that for his tenure then Kristen would vote for him.  Whatever.

Let's be clear on something real fast.  Bush didn't "bring down the average deficit."  HE CREATED THE DEFICIT!  There was a budget surplus when Bush took office.  By the end of 2001, his first year in office, there was a mutli-hundred billion dollar deficit.  By the time Bush left office, there was a $1.5 trillion deficit. That's Obama's starting point.  Not Obama's creation.

Obama has nothing to bring the deficit down to in order to equal Bush.  As long as Obama keeps the deficit under $1.5 trillion he's done more than Bush ever did.  You don't get to take the largest budget surplus in history, increase spending by 32% and turn it into a $1.5 trillion deficit and say that you brought down the average deficit and then hold opponents to such a standard.  It doesn't work that way.  The world does not operate according to Fox News lies. You need to grow up and quit with the smug fiscal conservative lies.

Just to throw a wrench into this and totally fry Billy's brain.  If we keep him at his word, judging by his standard of how he votes, Obama is allowed to add on average $611 billion to the budget deficit by the end of his term and still get his support, because after all that is what Bush did. Of course Kristen won't agree to that because Kristen doesn't believe Bush created the deficit. He believes Bush brought the deficit down.  This is the total idiocy America is forced to deal with thanks entirely to Fox News.