Spend a Little Time on This

President Obama has a lot of enemies - no doubt. But the fellow also has a lot of friends. And perhaps his greatest friend is Market Watch's Rex Nutting. Earlier this year, Mr. Nutting came out with an article entitled, "Obama, Smallest Spender Since Eisenhower". The only problem with it is that it's total bullshit......................................................................................a) Mr. Nutting attributed the entire 2009 budget to Bush - even though Obama had larded the thing up with over $400 billion in additional spending, most of which Bush had opposed. b) The 2009 budget included massive amounts of TARP spending that then Senator Obama also strongly supported. c) Obama proceeded to use this inflated 2009 budget as his benchmark and has (happily) stuck to this newly inflated level of spending. d) Spending under Obama would have been even more gratuitous had it not been for a Republican congress holding him back in 2011 and 2012. And d), spending under Obama has averaged 24.3% of GDP (as opposed to 19.8% under Clinton and 19.6% under Bush) - one of the highest levels in U.S. history. To even insinuate that this President hasn't been a major spender is insane......................................................................................Needless to say, NONE of this has made an iota's worth of difference to the folks over at MSNBC. Martin Bashir, Ed Schultz, Lawrence O'Donnell, and Rachel Maddow have all taken turns in promoting Mr. Nutting's "analysis" as if it were gospel. Anything to make the occupant of the White House look solid, I'm gathering.