Has Obama administration spent more money than all previous presidents?

Answer 1

No. Let's start with two stipulations, then go on to interpretations of existing facts.

Firstly, remember that CONGRESS spends the money, not the Presidents. That is, Congress appropriates (spends) Federal money - it decides the particular details as to where money is to be allocated. While any President has some persuasive effect on this spending, the truth of the matter is that Congress (not just this congress, but Congress as an institution over the last several decades) is to blame for the current debt situation of the country. Also, when accounting debt and budgets, one must look at Fiscal Years (FY), which run October to October, so a new President (who starts in January) doesn't actually get to propose a budget until over 9 months into his term.

Secondly, even if we ignored this fact (spending = Congress), the aggregate size of ALL federal spending over President Obama's term (FY2010 to FY2012 - the current FY) is roughly 11 trillion dollars. Given that, even in absolute dollar amounts (i.e non-inflation adjusted dollars), the size of the US budget had been increasing about $100 billion (5%) per year for about 20 years now. [EXCLUDING the war costs in FY 2003-2009, which were "left off" (hidden from) the budget accounting.]

Accordingly, for instance, the size of the federal budget in 2000 was about $1.8 Trillion, and about $2.4 Trillion in 2005, one can see that the aggregate amount of money spent during Barack Obama's Presidency is, while notably more than predecessors, is not outlandishly so. Roughly speaking, President Obama's 3 FY budgets are about equal to the last 4 FY budgets under his predecessor, G.W. Bush, assuming one does not include the "emergency" war appropriations. If one includes the war appropriations, then Obama's first three years spent about 10% more than Bush's last three years.

So, the absolute answer to the question, as posed, is factually a NO.

The link in the related links section shows a graph that has been verified to be based on facts and it shows the *growth* in spending is well below all the Presidents back through Ronald Reagan's term.

See the discussion section for additional comments, opinions and discussion. Please add additional discussion in that section.

Answer 2

Making comparisons on a year-to-year basis (i.e. has any yearly budget under the Obama administration been larger than all past yearly budgets), then, in absolute dollar terms, YES. If the question is asking if the aggregate spending during the Obama Administration has exceeded the aggregate spending of all other Presidents combined, then the answer is definitely NO.

The Public Debt of the United States when Obama started office (Jan 2009) was about $9.8 Trillion. As of Jan 2012, it is just over $14.4 Trillion. For comparison, G.W. Bush started in 2001 with about $5.8 Trillion in debt, and finished with $9.8 Trillion.

As for the size of the Federal Budget, it has averaged $3.5 Trillion / year under Obama, and $2.5 Trillion / year under G.W. Bush.

All figures are per the OMB and CBOE, which are the White House and Congress' Accountants.

There are several major caveats to the above numbers, however. Firstly, one must also remember to INFLATION-ADJUST all figures before doing a comparison, as $1 in 1900 is worth significantly more than $1 in 2000. Secondly, the G.W. Bush numbers do NOT include "emergency expenditures" for military purposes, while the Obama numbers DO include them; in essence, cost for warfighting during the G.W. Bush Administration was hidden "off the books", and went directly onto the deficit, without being reported on the Budget. Lastly, and this is a BIG NOTE: Presidents (of any party) do not spend money. They have virtually no control over how the United States allocates its money - that duty (and responsibility) falls to Congress. While a President does have a veto, the reality of modern politics is that spending bills are almost always rolled up into massive "omnibus" bills, which are politically impossible to veto. So, the sole responsibility for spending in the United States now falls on Congress, not whichever President holds that office at the time.

Answer 3

No, this is a political charge, made by his opponents, and such accusations are rarely true. In every campaign, the partisans on each side make these kinds of claims, in order to persuade the voters that one side is wasteful and the other side is not. But there is no evidence that President Obama has "spent more money than all other presidents."

Answer 4

All administrations spend money everyday. They have to spend money to keep the country running. It is always good to ask what they are spending it on.