White House urges press not to buy into 'B.S.' Republican talking points about Obama spending

The big surge in federal spending happened in fiscal
2009, before Obama took office. Republicans have long used the "tax-and-spend" trope as a cudgel against Democrats. That's happening again this election season. But, as White House Press Secretary Jay Carney pointed out to reporters riding Air Force One Wednesday, asserting that President Obama has been on a spending spree is a GOP talking point utterly in conflict with the facts.

Carney had just read the Rex Nutting analysis in the Marketwatch section of the Wall Street Journal that we highlighted here Tuesday. Condensed, that analysis says the "spending binge" Obama supposedly has been on since he came into office never happened.

Donovan Black of Politico wrote that Nutting's piece spurred Carney to offer a bit of advice for his captive audience:

'That is a fact not often noted in the press,' Carney said, 'and certainly never mentioned by the Republicans.' [...]

'I simply make the point'as an editor might say'to 'check it out,'' he said.

'Do not buy into the B.S. that you hear about spending and fiscal constraint with regard to this administration. I think doing so is a sign of sloth and laziness.'

Critics on the left have argued that the Obama administration has not spent enough because more government stimulus is needed to remedy the impacts of the Great Recession. Paul Krugman and other economists came to this conclusion before the stimulus was passed 39 months ago. Christine Romer, former chairperson of the Council on Economic Advisers, also wanted more stimulus, but her ideas in this regard never made it to the president's desk. The counter-argument was that while more would probably be better, politically more was impossible because an unwilling Congress stood in the way.

Suppose for a moment that Congress had not been in the way. Suppose that the stimulus package had been double what it was, rounded off at $1.6 trillion. That's pretty much what I and others argued should have been pushed. Reckless spending? On the contrary, it would have meant a temporary boost in additional overall spending of just 5 percent. It should be noted that military spending has risen just under 8 percent since 2009. For comparison, during George Bush's two terms overall military spending rose 68 percent. Against that, a doubled stimulus package, especially one focused on investments in clean energy and restored infrastructure, seems more than reasonable. And still nothing like a "spending spree."

Whether or not one believes Obama should have spent more to boost the economy, it's clear that he has not presided over four years of reckless expansion of the federal budget. As Carney points out, the media should not be reinforcing the Republicans' bullshit claims that he has.