Did Obama Spend More Than All Presidents Combined?

"Did Obama spend more than all presidents combined?"

No, this is a ridiculous statement. Of course, before I get into the meat of it, since most people wont understand or care to understand, I will give a very clear and to the point answer to the question above:

Bush Jr. Had spent a total of ~$21 TRILLION dollars over 8 year term in office.

Thus far, the Obama administration has only spent ~280 BILLION dollars... And this is while he has been dealing with the two wars and economic mess left to him by G.W. Bush.

Obviously, the Obama administration has spent a minute fraction (thus far) of what the previous (Bush) administration had spent...

Thus there is NO WAY that President Obama's administration could have spent MORE than all the other 43 Presidents COMBINED (which was the question).

End of story.

Source:

www.mercatus.org www.census.gov Now on to the fun part (sorry if this is messy, I tried to format it in Word and the HTML code that Blurtit uses doesn't like that for some reason)...

Most people believe that Democrats are big spenders and that Republicans are tight-fisted. The evidence leads to a very different conclusion (of you bother to look at factual evidence rather than relying on biased, partisan gut reactions like some people).  

• In the twelve years that a Democrat has sat in the White House, spending has increased at an average rate of 1.29% per year; during the 22 years of Republican presidencies, government spending has risen at an average rate of 2.12%. In other words, spending has grown 64% faster when a Republican sits in the White House than when a Democrat does.

• During the 20 years Democrats have controlled both houses of Congress, spending has grown at an average rate of 1.84% per year, more than double the average rate of 0.89% per year during the six years the GOP ran Congress. (During the other eight years, when control of Congress was split between the two parties, spending grew at an average rate of 2.52%. The split-control years all occurred during Republican presidencies.)

• When Democrats controlled the White House plus both houses of Congress, spending grew at 1.70% per year, slightly below the average growth rate of 1.83% for the entire period.

• The slowest spending growth occurred when a Democrat sat in the White House and Republicans controlled both houses of Congress. Spending rose by an average of just 0.89% during the six years of this situation, which all occurred with Bill Clinton as president and Newt Gingrich as Speaker of the House.

• During the 14 years Republicans controlled the White House and Democrats controlled both houses of Congress, spending grew at an average annual rate of 1.92%. During the eight years with a Republican president and a split Congress, spending grew at 2.54% per year.

All this must come as a shock to the overwhelming majority of Americans who believe that Democrats are spenders and Republicans want to cut government spending. The simple fact is that during the past 34 years, government spending has grown significantly faster when a Republican has sat in the White House.But the old prejudice still seems to have some validity regarding Congress: Democratic-controlled congresses have increased spending at a rate more than twice the rate that Republican congresses have.Government spending has grown fastest when a Republican was in the White House and Democrats controlled Congress. It has grown most slowly when a Democrat was president and Republicans controlled Congress.

Source:

www.census.gov & the 8 years I spent getting an M.A. In Political Science.

Add up the spending from Washington through the Shrub.  That equals $96 trillion.  Y'all are seriously trying to convince us Obama has spent more than that?  Show us the proof.  And "because Rush/Glenn/Sarah said" isn't proof.

Yes. He has spent more money during his Presidency thus far (today is Oct. 16, 2009) than all of the Presidents before him, put together. He has never been the owner of a business or hired to run a business, has no collegiate training in finances or government, much less governing. He was a Senator for only four months before he hit the campaign trail. Now, all of his lack of training and business acumen is coming into the light, as he runs from one fire to the next, trying to put them out with $100.00 bills (and lots of them)!

A lot of uneducated people on this web site.
Fact - Obama has spent "more" money than all 43 previous presidents - Fact!

No...that would be Bush.