Net Spending Cut?

In which a candidate behaves contrary to his campaign promises:

Candidate Barack Obama, October 15, 2008, third presidential debate:

But there is no doubt that we’ve been living beyond our means and we’re going to have to make some adjustments.

Now, what I’ve done throughout this campaign is to propose a net spending cut.

Economist Kevin Hassett, May 19, 2009, Bloomberg News columnist:

Extrapolating out the 2007 CBO forecast, our government plans to spend about $5.6 trillion more between 2009 and 2018 than was projected to be spent when the Democrats took over control of Congress.

To put that number in perspective, at the start of the 2007 budget year, Democrats inherited $4.8 trillion in outstanding government debt. That means that all of the deficits that have been run through all of history, funds that were used to finance the Vietnam War and the Iraq War and everything else in between, would be smaller than the spending increases of Democrats over the next 10 years if they are permitted to stay in power and keep up this pace.

I think this gives too much blame to the President, and not enough to Congress, for awful budget policy, but it certainly highlights how Barack Obama's campaign promise of fiscal discipline was only that.