Right now, more than 80 percent of the money raised by superPACs has gone to pro-GOP groups. And, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, 80 percent of all the money raised by these groups has come from just 100 individuals — the wealthiest people in America. People like Texas billionaire Harold Simmons.

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citizens-concerned:

By Veronique de Rugy

Something really strange is happening in Washington these days: The same people who are always arguing that the only way to boost economic growth is to spend and spend and spend are also the ones bragging about President Obama’s record, wait for it, as the smallest spender of all presidents.

If that’s true, shouldn’t they be upset? And if they are upset, should they be praising Obama for how little he is spending? And if he really is a small spender, did the stimulus really save the day? I am confused.

Here are a few examples of the articles about how Obama is a model of fiscal responsibility: 

• The article by Rex Nutting, of MarketWatch, titled, “Obama spending binge never happened.”
• The New York Times’s Floyd Norris has a piece called “Government Getting Smaller in the U.S.”
• Andrew Sullivan on how Obama’s spending record is more conservative than Reagan’s.

I would like to preface my remarks by saying that I am not here to defend the record of presidents Bush and Reagan on spending. Both of them spent too much money and grew the federal budget excessively. But that doesn’t make Obama a fiscal hawk. The budget deficit as a share of GDP didn’t go from 1.2 percent in 2007 to 7.6 percent without some aggressive spending which wasn’t backed by tax revenue or GDP growth.

This morning the Washington Post’s fact checker gave Jay Carney 3 Pinocchios (that’s not good) for using Nutting’s numbers to claim that spending growth under Obama was the smallest since Dwight Eisenhower. First, as Glenn Kessler notes, spending is going up and it’s going up fast. So no matter what the annual growth rates are under Obama, things aren’t looking good. Also these advertized growth rates aren’t looking so good if one uses at more realistic numbers from the CBO alternative baseline rather than a wishful-thinking baseline.

The correct figure to use is the CBO’s analysis of the president’s 2013 budget, which clocks in at $3.72 trillion.

 So this is what we end up with:

2008:  $2.98 trillion

2009:  $3.27 trillion

2010:  $3.46 trillion

2011: $3.60 trillion

2012: $3.65 trillion

2013:  $3.72 trillion

Under these figures, andusing this calculator, with 2008 as the base year and ending with 2012, the compound annual growth rate for Obama’s spending starting in 2009 is 5.2 percent.  Starting in 2010 — Nutting’s first year — and ending with 2013, the annual growth rate is 3.3 percent. (Nutting had calculated the result as 1.4 percent.)

I guess it means that Congress — and those annoying obstructionists tea partiers — are the ones responsible for Obama’s alleged fiscal responsibility. (That we can claim that anyone is fiscally responsible when the government spends $3.65 trillion blows my mind, by the way).

His whole post ishere. Finally, my colleague Matt Mitchell dida fantastic job debunking Norris’s claim that the government is shrinking.As Mitchell puts it “Government Spending Has Shrunk … When You Ignore 44 Percent of Government Spending.”

What Mr. Norris neglects to note is thatreal gross domestic product for the government is only about half of what governments actually spend. And when you look at total spending, it is actually up over the last three years, not down… .

Among other things, however, government GDP does not include transfer payments such as Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, Unemployment Insurance, Earned Income Tax Credits, Supplemental Nutritional Assistance, Housing Assistance, Supplemental Security Income, Pell Grants, Temporary Assistance to Needy Families, WIC, LIHEAP…you get the point.

It turns out that real spending on everythingotherthan government consumption and gross investment is up about 19 percent since Obama took office. And this is more than enough to offset what’s going on with consumption and gross investment. Thus, total spending is up 7.7 percent in real terms.

——————————————————————————————

This article is fantastic. The last three paragraphs are perfect. This is something everyone can relate to; that feeling that, our government is putting out all of these numbers, that would appear that everything is actually great and improving!

Yet, I feel these strange sensibilities, because it feels like things are still getting worse.

I have read many articles and reports from the current administration that there’s less government, more freedom, more jobs, stronger economy, et cetera, but the numbers just don’t add up.

Then you realize that the numbers being put out are all phony.

—Shared by Elle.

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fuckyeahmarxismleninism:

Damascus, May 27 (Prensa Latina) - Syria has denounced the synchronization of the recent massacre in Houla city with the visit of UN and Arab League envoy Kofi Annan to verify the fulfilment of the six-point plan for a political solution to the crisis.

  During a press conference, the spokesman of the Foreign Affairs Ministry Jihad Makdesi, called the attention on the suspicious synchronization of the attacks against the civil population with the arrival of Annan.

It is a blow against the political process, held Makdesi after stressing that the brutal killing method is not part of the Syrian army ethics and noted that it is not the Syrian army who is killing civilians, but armed terrorist groups.

Makdesi questioned the flippant nature with which the government forces are accused of the massacre of over 90 people, including children, in the central town of Houla on Friday.

The Syrian government spokesman said that since his country accepted the UN plan, terrorist groups increased their actions, because they do not want the success of the program.

The statements of the Syrian authorities coincide with prompt condemnations of various spokesmen from Western nations, led by the US, and some Arab monarchies which hold Damascus responsible for the massacre of civilians in Houla.

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rationworld:

“Well because, if you take a trillion dollars for instance, out of the first year of the federal budget, that would shrink GDP over 5 percent. That is by definition throwing us into recession or depression. So I’m not going to do that, of course,” -Mitt Romney (via Huffington Post)

If Romney actually believes this, why is he supporting Paul Ryan’s budget plan?

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