Factchecking the claim that Obama controlled government spending: The problem with fact checking

The Washington Post's Glenn Kessler nails the claims that Obama has controlled government spending, giving it three Pinocchios.

“I simply make the point, as an editor might say, to check it out; do not buy into the BS that you hear about spending and fiscal constraint with regard to this administration. I think doing so is a sign of sloth and laziness.” — White House spokesman Jay Carney, remarks to the press gaggle, May 23, 2012 . . . Nutting basically takes much of 2009 out of Obama’s column, saying it was the “the last [year] of George W. Bush’s presidency.” Of course, with the recession crashing down, that’s when federal spending ramped up. The federal fiscal year starts on Oct. 1, so the 2009 fiscal year accounts for about four months of Bush’s presidency and eight of Obama’s. In theory, one could claim that the budget was already locked in when Obama took office, but that’s not really the case. Most of the appropriations bills had not been passed, and certainly the stimulus bill was only signed into law after Obama took office. . . . On the other end of his calculations, Nutting says that Obama plans to spend $3.58 trillion in 2013, citing the Congressional Budget Office budget outlook. But this figure is CBO’s baseline budget, which assumes no laws are changed, so this figure gives Obama credit for automatic spending cuts that he wants to halt. . . .

Meanwhile, PolitiFact.com thinks that the Nutting claims are "mostly true." Politifact accepts the Nutting assumption that Obama shouldn't be responsible for any government spending before October 1, 2009. One wonders whether PolitiFact.com even bothered to look up some of the objections that were floating about on this claim before they wrote up their evaluation.

Other evaluations from Political math via Hotair and the Daily Caller are available.