Inherited deficits - An instructive primer

Our fearless leader was once fond of saying that he would cut in half, by the end of his first term, the deficit that he had "inherited" from his predecessor.  This was a stupid statement on a number of levels, but many in the news media were willing to accept the "inherited" number at face value.  So it's mildly amusing to see that, even using the bullshit "inherited" number as a starting point, the president's economic approach has been a laughable failure.

But what about this "inherited" business?  I've maintained from very early on that the president didn't inherit anything close to the mind-blowing deficits that he has dumped upon you fine folks and your children (and grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, and their grandchildren...).  I knew this as a matter of common sense, given that I apparently have more common sense than a lot of folks.  But I never really dug into the numbers. I knew (from specific numbers that I don't recall right now) that deficits had exploded under Bush after 9/11 and that they had slowly receded until the financial meltdown of 2008.  I knew that the media assessment of Bush's legacy saddled him with the full cost of the TARP legislation (that Obama promoted on the campaign trail and half of which was actually spent on Obama's watch).  I also knew that most of the TARP money was repaid by the banks and that its actual impact on the deficit wasn't all that terrible.

So we had a deficit somewhere below half a trillion before The One™ took over.  Then we had a deficit well over a full trillion after The One™ took over.  Yet The One™ inherited a crazy deficit and he was going to fix it, by golly.  This is how stories are written in the modern age.  If you repeat a lie often enough... well shit, I think that's Lenin.  I'm not allowed to refer to socialism in the modern climate.  Whatever though.  The myth of the inherited trillion+ dollar deficit was pathetic.

Pathetic according to me.  But far from pathetic according to this MarketWatch article.  Just let that one sink in for a minute.  According to the article, spending EXPLODED under Bush and then SLOWED down under Obama.  You know what we say about people who are dumb enough to believe this shit, right?  If so, then yeah.  We say it all the time.  If not, then don't worry.  We're saying it about you.

People don't much care for dissertations about the 2009 fiscal year and the fact that Pelosi and Reid controlled Congress back when this shit was relevant.  What they care about is ready-for-consumption pop culture that a third grader could follow.  Well, we have plenty of that around here.  We at Fenian Godfather Research are not terribly creative though.  So we've hired another firm to do our local advertising.  You really might want to take a look at these numbers.

[Infographic and underlying analysis provided by Political Math Blog.  One of the finest sources on the internet for those of us who understand that math is a bitch when you're a big spender.]

Read it and... I don't know... weep?  Chuckle?