My previous page on Obama (found here) clearly showed that President Obama has presided over one of the “greatest periods of government austerity in recent memory.”

To hammer home this point, there are a few more pieces of evidence I would like to share with you.

Firstly, consider the graph below (source):

It clearly shows what we already knew, that overall government spending under Obama is going down (though state and local spending is also being slashed).

Secondly, it shows that government spending under G.W. Bush increased dramatically. Where the Tea Party patriots were then we can only speculate about.

In fact, Federal spending is lower now than it was when President Obama took office, taxes today are lower than they were on inauguration day 2009, and the deficit this year is going to be lower than what it was on the day President Obama took office.

Whilst you let those facts sink in for a while, here is the graph that proves it (source):

And speaking of the national deficit, what caused it?

Well, according to TPM, “The vast bulk of the debt is the result of policies enacted during the Bush administration coupled with automatic increases in federal spending and decreases in tax revenue triggered by the economic downturn.”

Using figures from the Center On Budget and Policy Priorities from May 2011, we see what current policies have caused it. If you’re G.W. Bush, you may want to look away now (source):

To quote Andrew Sullivan:

No administration has reduced aggregate government spending as a precentage of GDP as much as Obama’s in forty years. If you look at the full chart, back to George HW Bush, you reach an inescapable conclusion: the biggest spenders and borrowers are Republicans and the most fiscally conservative presidents have been Democrats.

To claim that President Obama is a “Big Government Socialist,” a “Marxist,” or a “Stealth Commie” may make for a good soundbite, but it’s an outright lie.

As Daniel Patrick Moynihan once said, “‘Everyone is entitled to his own opinions, but not to his own facts.”