Family Tree by Signe Wilkinson for January 27, 2012

Not that I exactly want to defend Obama and the government’s spending record; however, Obama became prez as the US slipped deep into the greatest economic downturn since the Great Depression – one that rivals, and depending on the metric, in fact exceeds the G.D. for loss of employment, loss of market values (on an inflation-adjusted basis), and loss of real estate prices and foreclosures. During such times, government spending necessarily goes up (such as for unemployment benefits), even as tax and other revenues decline precipitously due to lower wages and unemployment. All this was already in motion, beginning in 2006. So it isn’t really reasonable to demonize Obama, since government spending hasn’t really been the problem, it’s lost revenue that is – and in the Great Depression, when governments did cut back spending it worsened the economic malaise, and government revenues as it fed a vicious circle of lost incomes meaning lost income taxes. US levels of government debt per capita are not really that bad, certainly better than almost any other industrial democracy. Not that that means the taps for spending should be flung open further, but it is a tightrope in a weak economy between limiting government debt and avoiding an economic death-spiral.