Tuesday, October 18, 2011

The Austerity Myth: Federal Spending Up 5% This Year

By John Merline at investors.com

When Republicans took control of the House in January, they pledged to make deep cuts in federal spending, and in April they succeeded in passing a bill advertised as cutting $38 billion from fiscal 2011's budget. Then in August, they pushed for a deal to cut an additional $2.4 trillion over the next decade.

Some analysts have blamed these spending cuts for this year's economic slowdown.

But data released by the Treasury Department on Friday show that, so far, there haven't been any spending cuts at all.

In fact, in the first nine months of this year, federal spending was $120 billion higher than in the same period in 2010, the data show. That’s an increase of almost 5%. And deficits during this time were $23.5 billion higher.

Read the rest here …

[What this really exposes is the myth that the GOP has tried to convey to it’s adherents that they are cutting stuff. Nothing serious is happening to our deficits! – JS]

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