![\"Government](\"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/Gov_spending_2000-2011_300px.jpg\" "\\"Gov_spending_2000-2011_300px\\"")
by John Merline –
\nWhen 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.<\/p>\n
Some analysts have blamed these spending cuts for this year’s economic slowdown.<\/p>\n
But data released by the Treasury Department on Friday show that, so far, there haven’t been any spending cuts at all.<\/p>\n
Higher Spending, Deficits<\/strong> These spending hikes haven’t stopped many analysts from claiming that the country is in an age of budget austerity, one that’s hurting economic growth.<\/p>\n A July article in USA Today, for example, claimed that “Already in 2011, softer government spending has sapped growth.”<\/p>\n Jared Bernstein, former chief economic adviser to Vice President Biden, wrote over the summer that “government spending cutbacks have been a large drag on growth in recent quarters and have led to sharp losses in state and local employment.”<\/p>\n Economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman argued in September that “the turn toward austerity (is) a major factor in our growth slowdown.”<\/p>\n If government spending is related to growth, as these and others claim, then the economy presumably should be growing faster, not slower, given the current higher rates of federal outlays.<\/p>\n State Spending Higher Too<\/strong> Overall state spending continued to climb right through the recession, when all money from state general funds and other funds, federal grants and state bonds is combined.<\/p>\n Total state outlays in 2010 were almost 10% higher than in 2008, according to the National Association of State Budget Officers’ annual State Expenditure Report.<\/p>\n And general fund spending \u2014 which makes up about 40% of total state spending \u2014 is expected to climb 5.2% in 2011 and 2.6% next year, according to the association’s latest survey.<\/p>\n NASBO says that states were able to sustain spending growth through 2010 only because the federal government was pumping more money in via the $830 billion stimulus, and that these funds are now all but exhausted.<\/p>\n HT: Investor’s Business Daily<\/a><\/p>\n by John Merline – 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 … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":497,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"generate_page_header":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[87,117,133,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6847","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-government-incompetence","category-leftist-hypocrisy","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6847","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/497"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6847"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6847\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6847"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6847"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6847"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nIn 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. <\/p>\n
\nNor does the claim that state governments sharply cut spending stand up well to closer scrutiny.<\/p>\n![\"Federal](\"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/Gov_Spending_01_2000-2011.gif\" "\\"Gov_Spending_01_2000-2011\\"")
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"