Fox News falsely claimed Obama budget "4x bigger than Bush's costliest plan"
April 03, 2009 2:58 pm ET
SUMMARY: On America's Newsroom, on-screen text falsely claimed that President Obama's $3.6 trillion FY 2010 budget is "4x bigger than Bush's costliest plan." In fact, President Bush submitted a $3.1 trillion budget for FY 2009 and a $2.9 trillion budget for FY 2008.
During the April 3 edition of Fox News' America's Newsroom, on-screen text repeatedly falsely claimed that President Obama's $3.6 trillion fiscal year 2010 budget is "4x bigger than Bush's costliest plan." However, President Bush submitted a $3.1 trillion budget for FY 2009. For FY 2008, Bush submitted a $2.9 trillion budget.
From America's Newsroom:
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I would bet that Repubs and their right-wing media machine actually never took into account the costs of the war budgets since Bush & Co hid them from the actual budget. They just do not get that this is actually LESS of a defecit when you take that into account.
Republicans don't care if what they say is true or not. Their only concern is whether or not their stories will scare, intimidate or hoodwink enough people to elect more Republicans.
Right, they hid the cost of the Iraq war from the democrats, who have controlled congress and the budget since 2007.
Not really. There was a Repugnant Prez in there, with a slim majority and lots of obstruction. The Iraq/Afghanistan wars off the books, submitted as "emergency supplementals."...a little hard to turn down, don't you think? since our soldiers were already over there.
Obama's budget may actually be less than Bush's last couple since he's actually including Iraq War costs.
That's what I was thinking.
Bush never had Iraq and Afghanistan in his budgets, so chances are good, they were about the same, or more than Obama's proposed budget.
Stupid liberals! Fox said the budget was 4x "bigger," not 4x more expensive. And the size of an abstract concept like a budget is totally in the eye of the beholder! Debunk THAT, MMFA!
actually 4x bigger is suggesting and telling the viewers that it IS more expensive to have President Obama in charge.
Debunk THAT mrhebert!
You're not serious trying to say there is a difference here between "bigger" and "more expensive". Budgets are measured in dollars, so when Fox falsely claims this is 4x bigger, they mean dollars.
I think you're right, he's not serious. The third sentence in particular should make it obvious.
He probably isn't, but I have seen word parsers around here with a fine tooth comb do more than that.
You're not serious trying to say
I'm quite confident he's not.
It does make me wonder, though, just what twists of fact they based the "4x" on. Usually the wingers have some argument in support of their claims. Those arguments generally range from the improper through the invalid right to the thoroughly bogus, but at least they exist.
(Consider the claim that the cap-and-trade plan will cost each US family an average of $3100 a year in energy costs. The method used to obtain that figure was completely invalid mathematically, but there was a method.)
In this case, I can't imagine what the claim would be based on. The new budget has four times as many line items as "Bush's costliest plan?" The actual physical budget uses 4x as much paper? The new budget uses the letter "x" four times as often? What?
The actual physical budget uses 4x as much paper?
I see where seeryer and Victor Colorado both beat me to the punch on that. I hang my head in shame for not having read all the comments before posting.
Maybe they meant 4x bigger than the gop plan. Remember, I've seen the gop plan:
Maybe the font FOX scares us with is 4x bigger? Or maybe x is a variable equal to one-fourth the difference between Bush's largest budget and this one?
Yeah! Stoopid libberalls!!!
If they're comparing the budget numbers submitted by Pres.Bush and the current one submitted by Pres.Obama it's not at all accurate...but that 4X number has a familiar ring to it.
In the context of deficit spending produced by a budget proposal...then the 4X number is accurate.
During the 8 years of the Bush Administration the govt. over spent revenue by $2 trillion. The budget submitted by Pres.Obama...over the next 8 years will produce a deficit spending total of $8 trillion...exactly 4X more deficit spending than the Bush years.
Geez, I remember when $1 trillion was a lot of money.
I don't think you can spin this...
"$3.6 TRIL BUDGET 4X BIGGER THAN BUSH'S COSTLIEST PLAN!"
...as anything other than dishonest.
<braille tag open> If they're comparing the budget numbers submitted by Pres.Bush and the current one submitted by Pres.Obama it's not at all accurate. <braille tag closed>
Now all you gotta do is drop the "if", Spinsley.
>>During the 8 years of the Bush Administration the govt. over spent revenue by $2 trillion. The budget submitted by Pres.Obama.
You linked to a huge PDF document with no direct quote showing us where you got the figure. It runs counter to common sense that a 2.9 trillion dollar budget would produce 1/4 as much debt as Obama's 3.6 trillion dollar budget.
-- You linked to a huge PDF document with no direct quote showing us where you got the figure. -- funnypants
I understand that it might be difficult to decipher a CBO report...particularly if one is keen on having information spoon fed like pablum...but it's really pretty simple.
The report produces a chart that projects the amount of revenue and expenditures by year as a consequence of Pres.Obama's budget. It's not a reflection of debt...rather how much money does Pres.Obama's budget produce...and the corresponding expenditures.
The numbers are clear...Obama's budget proposal...as scored by the CBO...spends $8 trillion more than the govt. will take in over the next 8 years.
It's all there...all you have to do is read the report and perform a little third grade math.
>>I understand that it might be difficult to decipher a CBO report...particularly if one is keen on having information spoon fed like pablum...but it's really pretty simple.
Wow! I point out the obvious, that I don't want to wade through a PDF, and you come back with this ugliness? I thought I was pretty polite in my question.
You include one of your typical posts where you include elpse after elipse. I can't understand why posters do this when they can't answer a question. In real life, when you can't answer a question, you stammer, only because you can't help it. But you don't have to type those elipses. You can at least try to not look defensive.
And you still didn't point to any where particular in the PDF. Let me guess why: you actually didn't read it. I know I shouldn't mind read, but how many people actually read the full text of the CBO? Let me go out on a limb again: you thought it would make you look smart by citing an original source. Of course, maybe you did read it; but your ugly, defensive response indicates otherwise.
In the meantime, I did some web searching on my own. The conservative heritage institute projects the deficit will double, not quadruple. I also learned that it is more important to look at the debt in terms of the GDP. According to that same report, the debt in terms of GDP could reach 5%, which would be unsustainable over the long term. But The debt was much greater between 1930-1933, when it was over 200% of the GDP! That was because the econcomy contracted and we had deflation. That is why it important to have even another stimulus package. If our economy dies, then any amount of debt will be unsustainable, and for that reason, Paul Krugman has advocated even more deficit spending. Krugman also points out how deficiti spending helped the US in the great depression, and only when FDR gave into the the balancing budget people did the economy start to do worse.
"This is the phenomenon we are seeing now. If the stimulus programme is successful then we might see US debt to GDP stabilising around 2013, since the deficit is expected to remain around $1 trillion for the next two years before starting to decline to $533 billion in 2013, according to budget projections.'
link
-- I don't want to wade through a PDF -- funnymanpants
You don't have to....the link provides a handy reference...just one click...and you're there.
Again you don't point him to a specific place in the PDF. Why not?
And as an FYI to others. It's a 56 page PDF. Wesley couldn'/wouldn't even say what page to look at in the report. I wonder why.
Wesley's not sure what "$3.6 TRIL BUDGET 4X BIGGER THAN BUSH'S COSTLIEST PLAN!" is referring to, so we can't expect him to navigate the directions on the back of wetnap, much less a 56-page PDF.
For those of you daunted by a 56 page report...here's a clue...try looking in the portion titled "CBO's estimate of the president's budget"...$8 trillion is pretty hard to hide. LOL.
But again... your figures do not include the war costs and Obama's does. Your still comparign apples to bushels of apples.
What does this mean? Will Fox comment on their mistakes? Did they mean in dollars or in pages?
Fox News lies with impunity. They'll probably try and say they were referring to the actual size of the document.
"Fox News lies with impunity. They'll probably try and say they were referring to the actual size of the document."
Something like that ---> LINK
Are all conservatives math challenged? It looks like they are in desperate need more of that NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND schooling.
Let's see, $3 trillion x 4, that would be, hold on, stay with me...
Um......okay, $12 trillion.
Obama's budget is $3.6 trillion.
Whenever conservatives get involved with numbers or complete sentences, it's usually trouble.
Probably home-skooled.
Hey, limit, don't forget FOX said 4x larger, not 4x as large. That means we have to add the $12 trillion on top of the $3 trillion, for a total of $15 trillion!
Man, can that Obama spend!
They still would not learn anything with NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND because Bush never funded the program.
I have frequently defended Fox but I don't see how they are anything but wrong here. Wesley's arguement is not valid either, the graphic clearly states "budget" , not a reference to deficit spending.
So what was their motive - this time?
Must have been referring to a GHWB budget.
I noticed this morning while listening to the radio that the dollar amount of this budget seems to be reported on much more frequently than for previous budgets. The idiot host on the idiotic morning show this morning even commented on it something like "whew, that's a lot of money" or something, not that I think she has any clue about what a normal budget is like.
I can't remember the numbers for Bush's budgets ever being reported to this degree.
Whoa folks. Let's keep our eye on the ball here. The closest that Obamas budget will come to the Bush administrations $450 billion dollar admittedly outrageous deficit after inheriting a $250 Billion surplus will be $600 Billion in 2012.
Obama quadrupled the deficit and then has a plan to cut THAT in half. Wow. "He's cuting the deficit in half!?" Leave the big, bold, first sentence out and THAT sounds great, huh?
While we are on the "efficient" Obama administration...(Please take notice of the usage of THAT word from him and echoed by all those that rode his back on the ticket) I can go save $4000 right this very second. The radio said that if I buy a car, I can SAVE $4000. This spendulus is placing the down payment on a Lamborghini. What happens in three years when that money runs out for your new school teachers or ten years down for the poor quality healthcare? My car gets repossessed! My economy is worse off than it was before. The liability outweighs the taxable dollars/government revenue than you can ever think of here.
However, a flat tax could, on paper, get us out of this compounded economical issue of Obama's. The poor could get their "pre-bate checks" and be better off than they are now.
Thank you Reality...
That's a very interesting post. Here's my advice: Go out and buy that shiny Lamborghini. Load it with the finest Saudi oil. And now...please...just STFU.
I might be a broken record here, but less than 1% of the country knows this. We are in a gilded age where the rich have been making incalculable amounts of money for 30 years. They don't need that money, as evidenced by the great results we've gotten every time we've raised taxes on them. The best our economy has ever been was when the rich were taxed at 70%.
Huge deficits aren't a problem when there's a huge untapped money reserve just sitting around waiting to be used. The only real problem is whether Obama will figure this out and make the very simple change. Nobody's asking him to, not even Krugman.
"a flat tax could, on paper, get us out of this compounded economical issue of Obama's" -- a flat tax can't increase revenue, not even on paper. The whole point of it is to coddle the rich, and that's where all the money is.
Looks like the economy is going great right now taxing those rich fellas, huh? We are putting it to them and that awful unemployment line.
No. The flat tax's is commonly called the "fair tax" for that very reason. It's fair!
What country are you living in that all those millionaires and billionaires are having it put to them?
Ugh, you don't even know that taxes are still at Bush levels, or that Obama's current policy will only inch them up a little in 2011.
Take your cretinous fairness morality play elsewhere. We aren't here to debate which tax policy is the nicest.
WRONG! Obama's tax plan does NOTHING but lower the tax rate for 98% of America. It was BUSH'S OWN TAX LAW that raises the taxes on the top 2% next year. This has NOTHING TO DO WITH OBAMA'S PLAN. We nee to rememeber that and remind people of that.
Hey Reality.
The economy of the USA did its best in the decades of our parents and grandparents, when the rich were highly taxed, much more highly taxed than they are right now.
The flat tax is called a fair tax, but it's not. Regressive taxes are not fair taxes. Fair taxes are ones that hurt everyone the least while still benefitting the nation, and rich people are not greatly hurt by progressive taxation. They pay more under progressive taxation than they do under a flat tax, but they are not being greatly hurt by that progressive tax, and they could pay a significantly higher percentage more and still do okay! That's the point that you missed.
Reality bites.
You folks obviously have not read much about the flat tax to say that. Put away the class envy anger aside and just learn about it...
No, our anger will not be just put away. If you had any common sense, you'd be urging a discussion on class before it's too late for peaceful discussion.
If you haven't noticed, people are ticked off at the elites because they mismanaged our economy into ruin in their deregulated, market fundie bubble and are now floating away with million dollar golden parachutes that you and I purchased for them. Meanwhile, those same CEO's are telling us that family supporting wages and retirement benefits for ordinary Americans are just fat that needs to be trimmed in order to maintain a competitive business. It's absurd, as you suggest, to sit there and put away our anger, as if the interests of billionaire bankers are the same as the interests of school teachers.
"...It's absurd, as you suggest, to sit there and put away our anger, as if the interests of billionaire bankers are the same as the interests of school teachers." Thats the age old con on the working class. We got to break through that lie. Good post!
I am afraid I am a layman only, so some of the more educated folks here on this issue can correct me if I am wrong, but a flat tax really seems to be quite unfair in a capitalist system of government.
You argue that a flat tax is fair because it taxes incomes and, in some cases, corporate profits at a single marginal rate. This is in contrast to a progressive tax that is determined by levels of income and, I think quite importantly, usage.
Take a cities infrastructure vs. a state infrastructure for example. I use the streets and freeways in my town alot, but most of these are short trips a few miles in any direction to go to work, retail outlets, family and friend visits, etc. I can look around and see many of my fellow citizens doing the same and will all help pay for this connection.
Once I leave my city and get out onto interstate highways and the like, things begin to change. Its no longer thousands of individuals driving short trips here and there about a centralized area like a city, but long stretches of road that have fewer personal cars and increasingly more large transport trucks, railroads, airports, etc.
Now it just does not seem fair to me to pay the same percentage for a infrastructure that I might use only ocasionally when there are large corporations who actually use the roads far more frequently and actually rely upon them to conduct their business.
I know all about the flat tax. In order to raise the same revenues, the lower middle class and the middle class pay a heck of a lot more than they do now and the rich get off a lot easier. It's basic math. If we raise a lot less revenue from the top 5-10%, we have to get that revenue from the people making less money. I understand that with most flat tax proposals, people making very minimal amounts of money get off scot-free, much like today, but that doesn't change the fact that the middle class pays the price.
Top that off with the fact that many types of income that the rich have aren't taxed in the same way that the basic salaries that most middle class people are, and you have an even better reason to not give the rich any more tax breaks.
Rich people should pay a higher percentage of their income and assets to help fund our nation's needs. It's the Christian thing to do. It's the progressive thing to do. The flat tax is regressive and wrong.
"It's the Christian thing to do."
This is false information above. Ten percent of our labor is not even ours to decide anything about for ANY christian.
The flat tax is the only idea out there that does not take advantage of one American over another. The poor get free money to spend, the middle class is taxed evenly, as well as the rich. For example, 10% is just that 10%.
all the more reason to keep religion out of politics...what you do with your money is your business, what the government does with money is everyone's business, and the people who make the most got it from those making less, so tax them more if you want fair.
Nonsense. There is no practical value to it. GO take an economics course, adn read some history. Even ADAM SMITH, in the WEALTH OF NATIONS (the single most referenced econmic work by conservatives) comes out in favor of a progressive tax. It doesn't work. You'd raise taxes on 99% of America. Nice plan.
These people really don't know how to count, do they?
Oh course they can't count. They're products of the american public school system.
Now look sad and say: "U.S. Americans" and they try to find Miss Dumfucikingstan on a map.
I'm not saying all americans are stupid. Just all FOX Noise hosts.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hp4iI59BfpQ
I mean, come on: Thirty percent of Ameicans don't know what month 9/11 is in.
Seriously:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kuZSmjfBe5A&feature=related
Republican math: $3.6 trillion is 4x bigger than $3.1 trillion.
No wonder they destroyed the economy.
The economy was not destroyed until tax and spend Obama came into office. Buying Lamborghini Healthcare that will perform like a Yugo is not what we need right now.
Reality said,
Can you please explain what you mean by this and show us how this has "destroyed" our economy?
I come from a family of doctors and medical professionals who have some VERY strong opinions about our current health care system. Seriously, you should see what family dinner conversations devolve into during the holidays. I am just interested in uderstanding your perspective on this.
I never understood the mentality of those from the right when it came to spending. If we are increasing the defecit by making machines of war and the occupation of other countries, well thats all okay. Nothing wrong with this burden being laid upon the shoulders of our children. This kind of defecit spending is okay, just so long as we are killing the "enemy."
Want to improve our infrastructure, build and upgrade schools, create a health care system for everyone, and provide assistance to the elderly and poor? You are a SOCIALIST!!! (which in my opinion rings laughably hollow... i.e. McCarthy era)
We spend an average of $12000 on many kids that do not aspire to do much with themselves in my county for education. 50% of these never make it out of high school. How exactly is throwing more money at the problem going to improve this pathetic situation? We are already holding kids back that go to school to learn with the kids that are in the same room disrupting it. Again, the onus should be shifted to the folks that are REALLY responsible for this national problem...THE PARENTS. If we spend a million bucks per child, will the outcome change? This sounds like the definition of insanity to me. You can only help those that are willing to help themselves.
I am a veteran. The government provided healthcare was pathetic AT BEST. You would think that the healthcare system that is already in place would be fixed before creating ANOTHER broken one.
Where does the assistance stop? This is the question that i should have asked LONG ago. Because someone breathes and their heart beats as a citizen, what are they ENTITLED to?
Yeah, it's expensive isn't it, but that's the price we pay for our beloved capitalism. Everything is more expensive than it should be... even government programs. So what is our alternate solution to this problem? How would you impress upon our children the importance of education and increase the quality of our teachers and the success of our schools? Of course, doing so with out increasing spending.
Reality said,
Huh? Is this a common thing in your community's schools and classrooms?
Reality said,
I am going to assume you are refering to the parents of the students who are being held back to learn with the kids who are disrupting class.
Reality said,
Thank you for your service.
Reality said,
You are suggesting that a new health care system is inherently broken. You are also assuming that the new system would not fix or even replace the existing broken one.
Reality said,
Lets start with what you believe you are entitled to as a citizen of this great country. Then lets hear what you feel you are entitled to as a veteran of this great country.
The standards for my three kids are obviously much higher than what other parents demand out of their children. I can tell when they are constantly disrupting my kids class and walking the streets during the day. I believe that we ought to hold the parents more accountable in some way. I mean, it is the parents responsibility in your mind right? They are big enough to make the kids but not grown or versed how to raise them. Not the governments responsibility! School is not a welfare babysitting service the last that I checked?
No child left behind does hold classrooms up that have kids that slow the curriculum down for the rest of the class, yes.
Do you know something that the rest of America does not know about this supposed "efficient" health care? Fill us in, if so.
As a citizen of this country, you are entitled to being kept safe, period. Not liberal democrat-safe, like toilet paper or a helping hand for using it.
"The economy was not destroyed until tax and spend Obama came into office."
What are you talking about?? Where have you been for the last 8 years?
No need for any history lesson or looking back even one year for that matter! I can just read the Obama plan at which the closest that he will come to the Bush administration high end deficit of $450 Billion will be $610 Billion in the year 2012. I was right with you throwing a fit about the $250 billion surplus Bush inherited to watch him spend us into a deficit in the first place. Well, now we are getting financially nuked by the dems and Obama.
You people? Do you think I am an Iranian or something. I am an American and I would venture to say more so than you.
Have more class/scruples and discuss issues Niceguy. Do you generalize blacks too? Or Muslims? ...
You are such an idiot. You are not even worth arguing with. Your knowledge of current events and economics are like a black-hole of ignorance. Turn off the AM radio and face facts - this mess exsisted ~1.5 years before Obama caim into office, and economists were warning about it for years before that. You poeple are sofa king stoopid.