Featured by Paul Krugman, this graph shows the overall growth in government spending in the past four years, growing from a cold number of just over 4,000 billion dollars to just over 5,000 billion. So, yeah, the government spending has increased, though not dramatically. Notably, the rate of increase since the Obama administration took office has remained largely unchanged. We can talk all we want about the increase of government spending, but it hasn't really changed all that much. And let's not forget why spending has increased.
We were fighting two wars actively- and though the combat mission has since ended in Iraq, America is still acting as a strong financial support in the area. The recession is still in full swing, and the only way to pull ourselves out of the hole we've dug ourselves is to spend. Tax cuts are great, but they are the definition of blind populism. Sometimes, just sometimes, what Americans want and what the economy needs do not match up. And for the good of all America, the economy needs to see a major increase in monetary circulation.
While spending hasn't increased much, in general, what has is good spending. Good for America, good for the economy, and really the only way a recovery will be successful. Next time, before rants about 'big government' and too much spending become the politically acceptable narrative, it is important that why and what spending has become prevalent is examined.
Featured on The Huffington Post, Ezra Klein's Washington Post blog and The Rachel Maddow Show, this shows the growth of wealth under all Democratic presidents since 1948 (the blue bars) and all Republican presidents since the same time. Certainly, it is staggering. Not only did every income bracket grow more under the Democratic presidents, they each grew at a relatively similar rate with a slightly higher amount of growth for the lowest income group. That is how the economy should operate, as a mutually progressive rate that keeps wealth growing enough to encourage Americans to prosper but not to create such a division that the top percentile is the only one that experiences real growth. Under Republicans, the exact opposite effect occurred. Growth was uneven and polarized, with the top income bracket swelling (though not even growing as much as it had), and the others growing less and less in descending order.
If nothing else, this is, in many ways, a validation of the economic policy of liberals in Congress who, for so long, have been treated as the party who didn't understand "real" America's economic problems. But as this chart so clearly lays out, spending works. It moves the economy forward, it creates jobs and it leads to an economic temprate where mutual prospering occurs.
In a chart, this is why who you vote for matters. And it raises the conundrum more clearly than any before it: why do so many low-income voters vote against their direct economic interest, especially when, like the tea party, they cite current financial conditions as a motivator for their vote?
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