Democrats Spend Less!

h/t Crooks And Liars



But not so fast...


The budget deficit under Clinton did improve, but you have to look at the second order derivative to see it go negative. Lot's of trends go negative when you look at the acceleration of the acceleration. If you slow going up a hill, the second order derivative of your motion goes negative. That doesn't mean you're going backwards.

I'll give Clinton his due. He did cut a lot of military spending. As we came out of the Reagan/Bush years, we had a lot of cold war overhang. The US government was growing to expand into that new capacity. What peace dividend we were enjoying then, would've canceled out soon enough.

In the end though, Obama broke the mold. He surpassed Bush II. He proved that Democrats can waste money even better than the Waster Meister Bush.

Perhaps that can be the source of a future updated chart?