UPDATE: This graph is now over one year old. For up to date information see this post: The Truth about Obama’s Budget Deficits, in Pictures


UPDATE: Chart revised 5/14/2010

Releasing his budget this Monday, President Barack Obama told the American people:

We won’t be able to bring down this deficit overnight, given that the recovery is still taking hold and families across the country still need help. … Just as it would be a terrible mistake to borrow against our children’s future to pay our way today, it would be equally wrong to neglect their future by failing to invest in areas that will determine our economic success in this new century.

But not only does President Obama’s budget fail to reduce deficits “overnight”, his budget actually moves them in the opposite direction. President Obama’s budget would:

  • Permanently expand the federal government by nearly 3 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) over 2007 pre-recession levels;
  • Borrow 42 cents for each dollar spent in 2010;
  • Leave permanent deficits that top $1 trillion in as late as 2020;

The chart above compares the President’s budget deficit projections to the Congressional Budget Office’s budget deficit projections under current law. In other words, the policy changes embodied in President Obama’s 2011 Budget puts our country $2.5 trillion deeper in debt by 2020 than it other wise would be if current law were left unchanged.

Now the President is apparently arguing that his trillions of dollars in additional deficit spending are needed to “invest in areas that will determine our economic success in this new century.”

This is statement goes to the core of the fundamental difference between leftists and conservatives in this country: liberals belief economic growth comes from wise investments by government experts; conservatives believe that economic growth stems from  millions of Americans having the freedom to make their own economic decisions everyday.

President Obama’s bailouts, massive stimulus spending, and other dangerous interventionist policies (some of which began in 2008) have made Americans less economically free. The 2010 Index of Economic Freedom analyzes just how economically “free” a country is, and this year America saw a steep and significant decline, enough to make it drop altogether from the “free” category, the first time this has happened in the 16 years we’ve been publishing these indexes. The United States dropped to “mostly free.” As the Index shows, lack of freedom has a direct, negative effect on job growth. It should be no surprise that President Obama’s policies have taken us down the path to fewer jobs and record deficits.