Rex Nutting's slight of hand on Obama spending numbers

I previously pointed out problems with Mark Thoma and Justin Wolfers claims on government spending.  Well Rex Nutting wasn't just satisfied with ascribing the first quarter of 2009 government spending to Bush.  He wanted to do it for all the spending up through October 1, 2009.  My question is: Did Nutting get the idea for his write up from Thoma and Wolfers? Ann Coulter does a good job of correcting the record here.

It's been breaking news all over MSNBC, liberal blogs, newspapers and even The Wall Street Journal: "Federal spending under Obama at historic lows ... It's clear that Obama has been the most fiscally moderate president we've had in 60 years." . . .Inasmuch as this is obviously preposterous, I checked with John Lott, one of the nation's premier economists and author of the magnificent new book with Grover Norquist: "Debacle: Obama's War on Jobs and Growth and What We Can Do Now to Regain Our Future."
It turns out Rex Nutting, author of the phony Marketwatch chart, attributes all spending during Obama's entire first year, up to Oct. 1, to President Bush.That's not a joke.
That means, for example, the $825 billion stimulus bill, proposed, lobbied for, signed and spent by Obama, goes in ... Bush's column. . . .
Nutting's "analysis" is so dishonest, even The New York Times has ignored it. He includes only the $140 billion of stimulus money spent after Oct. 1, 2009, as Obama's spending. . . .
The theory is that a new president is stuck with the budget of his predecessor, so the entire 2009 fiscal year should be attributed to Bush.
But Obama didn't come in and live with the budget Bush had approved. He immediately signed off on enormous spending programs that had been specifically rejected by Bush.
This included a $410 billion spending bill that Bush had refused to sign before he left office. Obama signed it on March 10, 2009. . . .
Obama also spent the second half of the Troubled Asset Relief Fund (TARP). These were discretionary funds meant to prevent a market meltdown after Lehman Bros. collapsed. . . .