How to make Obama's big spending look small

Recently, the Obama administration pointed to a single study by Rex Nutting, an economist who claims Obama's spending binge "never happened."

"Almost everyone believes that Obama has presided over a massive increase in federal spending, an “inferno” of spending that threatens our jobs, our businesses and our children’s future. Even Democrats seem to think it’s true," Nutting wrote at MarketWatch.  "But it didn’t happen. Although there was a big stimulus bill under Obama, federal spending is rising at the slowest pace since Dwight Eisenhower brought the Korean War to an end in the 1950s."

Really?

The blog Political Math (via Hot Air) constructed an easy-to-follow infographic that spells out all the ways Mr. Nutting is, well, full of it.  Follow along:

Political Math adds:

There are three things in this infographic that should be called out more explicitly.

First, much of the debate here centers around who exactly should catch the blame for FY 2009 spending. This is actually a very tricky question and I think compelling cases can be made for both sides of this debate. [...]

Second, Nutting uses the CBO baseline in place of Obama's spending. This is easily verified and I can't think of a serious economic pundit who would say this is OK. I can think of two reasons for doing this: Either a) Nutting is a monstrously biased ass who (rightly) figured no one in the liberal world would fact check him so he could use whatever the hell number he wanted to use or b) Nutting had no idea that the CBO baseline isn't a budget proposal. I'm actually leaning toward the second explanation. Nutting uses so many disparate sources it seems clear he doesn't know his way around federal finance.

Congrats, Mr. Nutting. I don't think you're a huge jerk, only that you're hilariously unqualified for your job.

But don't worry, Mr. Nutting.  It looks like you'll always have a fan in Barack Obama.