Obama's budget would create unprecedented deficits

Created on May 12, 2009

Obama Budget Path Would Produce Historic Federal Deficits

By Ken McIntyre

President Barack Obama's budget plan would make him the runaway champion deficit-spender among all modern presidents, doubling down on President George W. Bush. At this rate, federal deficits under Obama will outpace fellow Democrats John F. Kennedy and Bill Clinton by a factor of seven and eight, respectively.

What's more, the Obama budget calls for publicly held national debt to more than double in 10 years, to 82.4 percent of economic output (GDP) -- by far the highest level since World War II.

Yet amid a flood of spending by President Obama and the new Congress, the defense budget is set to fall to pre-9/11 levels -- from 4.7 percent of GDP to 3 percent.

Taxpayers can follow these and other budget and taxation trends of the new administration in the 2009 Federal Revenue and Spending Book of Charts.

An updated and expanded edition of a popular online resource from The Heritage Foundation, it includes 37 easy-to-follow information graphics. The chart pictured above is based on a new graphic that tracks deficit spending over more than 45 years -- from Kennedy to Obama.

New features in the Book of Charts include an interactive "flash" graphic showing that the more Americans earn, the higher their portion of total federal taxes. Taxpayers can click on the image, for instance, to see that the top 10 percent of earners pay 71 percent of the taxes -- and that the bottom 50 percent pay 3 percent.

• Tax rates must be more than doubled if Congress doesn't reform Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
• Massive bailouts pale next to trillions of dollars promised, but not funded, under those "Big Three" entitlements.
• "Stimulus" spending by Obama and Congress fattened an already-bloated federal budget.

Visitors toheritage.org/BudgetChartBook may download, post or e-mail any of the charts and graphs, as well as click on links to related Heritage research and analysis, commentary and even posts in The Foundry blog. Visitors can bookmark, embed and share data through Twitter, Facebook, RSS feeds and other applications.

"More than ever, interested taxpayers -- as well as journalists and members of Congress -- will find the Book of Charts the go-to site for details on federal spending and taxes, whether past, present or projected," says Nicola Moore, assistant director of Heritage's Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies.