Bush left Obama such a bad deal...?

I haven't been blogging much lately because I am busy trying to build up the funds so we can survive if we ever can retire.  But I heard Karl Rove on Fox News today, and he brought up some very interesting facts.  Hoping he will forgive me for any possible mis-statements, I have I reproduced his chart here to illustrate my point.

One of the chants we frequently hear from the Obama administration is that they were left such a bad deal by President Bush.  They would have us believe that all our woes are due to Bush, and they are fighting to recover.  But let's take a look at the facts.

First, let's go back even further to the hand dealt President Bush by the Clinton administration.  The budget left in President Clinton's final year increased discretionary non-security spending by 16% per year.  Without complaint, the Bush administration set about to cut that to 6% in the very first budget first budget, and by the end of his term President Bush had actually cut it to match the growth of inflation - essentially, he flat lined it! 

When President Obama took office, one of his first acts was to increase discretionary non-security spending by 10% - in the middle of the fiscal year!  Furthermore, the following expenditures (in $1,000,000,000's) are now either already in place or on the way:

$787 - Economic Stimulus Package
$350 - Bank Rescue Package (Approved under bush, Obama agreed, spent this year)
$33 - Expansion of children health insurance
$410 - Omnibus spending bill
$80 - Auto company bailout
$821 - Cap and Trade bill
$1,000 (One trillion) - healthcare bill proposal

So what is the result?  Let's start by taking out the Economic Stimulus and Bank Rescue packages, because their approvals span both administrations.  Not even including the proposed healthcare legislation, that's $1,344bn in spending approved by this administration.  In case you didn't notice, that is a $922,000,000,000 more than President Bush.  Doesn't look like he is trying to save much, does it? 

Furthermore, we have all seen the failure of the Economic Stimulus package, but Mr. Obama refuses to heed calls to return any of that money that is still around.  If you add  back some of that $787bn that could be reclaimed back in, let's say a little less than half, and assume that the healthcare bill will pass early next year, even paired down to a mere $800bn cost, we are looking at a total "unprescedented" one-year increase of almost $2 trilliion over the amount spent by President Bush!

I think it is time to place the blame squarely on the shoulders where it belongs, and that is Barack Obama.