Rusty,

Using flawed data garners flawed results.

A rebuttal from The Foundry

"Spending has skyrocketed under President Obama, but of late some are claiming that the opposite is true. Case in point: MarketWatch columnist Rex Nutting wrote, “Obama spending binge never happened,” and Politifact rated this statement “mostly true.”
What Politifact must have missed is a very important data point: President Obama signed most of the spending attributed to President George W. Bush’s last year in office, which was assigned wrongly to Bush in Nutting’s piece.
Nutting argues that President G.W. Bush’s second term spending bills from Fiscal Year 2006-2009 averaged 8.1% and President Obama’s annualized growth averaged 1.4%. The reason why Nutting included FY 2009 is because it was “the last of George W. Bush’s presidency — federal spending rose by 17.9% from $2.98 trillion to $3.52 trillion.” This assumption is incorrect and dishonest. This flaw in Nutting’s analysis is the reason why the Obama numbers are wrong and Nutting’s whole piece is based on flawed data."

The rest is here.
http://blog.heritage.org/2012/05/24/the-truth-about-president-obamas-skyrocketing-spending/

Rusty, tell me what "federal spending" entails, in your words. Which receipts are we counting and which ones are we ignoring?

You could have simply titled the blog:

Well Known Obama Cheerleaders and used your portrait as the story picture...

WIDELY KNOWN FACTS #1

Annual Federal Deficits:

FY 2009 Bush/Obama - $1,413,000,000,000
FY 2010 Obama - $1,293,000,000,000
FY 2011 Obama - $1,300,000,000,000
FY 2012 Obama/Romney - $1,327,000,000,000 (projected)

Now, regarding your claim Rusty, it's ridiculous, as Brian and McGibblets have shown. It's so patently crazy that I'm shocked that anyone, even a dyed-in-the-wool lefty like you, could believe it. I mean, it reminds me of that old Marx quote (I'm paraphrasing here): Who are you going to believe, Nutting or your own eyes? (sorry Rusty, I'm talking about Groucho, not your hero, Karl).

Even though your claim is completely preposterous, let me ask you a question. If you charged $100,000 on your credit cards in 2009, $101,400 in 2010, $102,819 in 2011, and $104,258 in 2012 (with an income of $60k and making only the minimum monthly payments), would you go around bragging about how you've done a great job at keeping your spending increases to a minimum?

OK, gentlemen, I shall respond with an apology. I do not like to post something as fact that is subjective. I was not aware and it has been noted that The MarketWatch data was subject to some date manipulations. I should not have posted that but would better have referred to several links including the Washington Post as you kindly offered. I also would like to submit http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2012/may/25/lots-heat-and-some-light-obamas-spending/ for your consideration.

IF you read the MarketWatch claim carefully, you did note that it referred to a key word "increase". The spending was there but the point was that the increase was slowed, claimed flattened.

I'll go with the Politifact discussion and apologize for not qualifying what I submitted on someone else's research. What I am not is "ridiculous". This is a topic that should be considered from both the Heritage's perspective as well as the Politifact and Washington post. It can easily be turned with slight modifications to meet any agenda. Thanks for your comments.