Last week, I heard a local liberal radio talk show host repeat, with gusto, the claim that President Obama has the lowest spending growth since Eisenhower.
Several places have addressed this claim. Here’s one and another. They raise some good points.
But I think spending growth is a red herring. The issue is actual government spending, not spending growth.
As Arthur Laffer and Steve Moore pointed out in the Wall Street Journal, President Obama took over after the grandest public spending binges of all times, one that was supposed to be temporary.
Claiming that locking that temporary spending binge into the budget going forward is a sign of conservative fiscal management is spin.
Consider a CEO who gives himself a $300 million bonus and draws the ire of the Occupy Wall Street types. He gets fired and the next CEO gives himself a $301 million bonus and tells Occupy friends not to worry because the growth in his salary is the lowest in recent history. I don’t think many people would fall for that.
Our Dinner Table 
The fact is that President Obama has lowered taxes more than any other black President.