Not 'The Largest Annual Spending Cut in Our History'

I read Spree's post earlier, "Note To The Far Right : CUT. IT. OUT... Pretty Please." She's arguing for pragmatism regarding the GOP's compromise on the Obama budget, but she's got another post where I'm linked and I'm reminded that I promised to fact-check Barack Pinocchio's claim that the deal included the "largest annual spending cut in our history." I didn't believe when I heard it, and turns out I'm not the only one. See David Boaz, "Not the Biggest Cut in History. Not by a Long Shot" (via Instapundit):

The president might be technically correct in this sense: In none of those years did federal spending fall by as much as $38 billion in nominal dollars. But any real comparison would use inflation-adjusted dollars or percentage of the budget, and by those standards there are no “big, big cuts” here. (Boehner specifically called it the “largest real [that is, inflation-adjusted] dollar spending cut in American history,” which is so clearly wrong that it must surely have been a misstatement.)

The fundamental point here is that federal spending rose by more than a trillion dollars during Bush’s first seven years, and then by almost another trillion in barely three fiscal years. And then we had a titanic battle over whether to trim $38 billion.

The idea that the Democrats “have shown that they heard the message that government spends too much” or that the Republicans—the party that increased federal spending by a trillion dollars while nobody was looking during the Bush years—have “imposed a small-government agenda on Washington” is ludicrous. After these meager cuts, the federal government will spend more than twice as much as it did when Bill Clinton left the White House.

See? Obama's a liar. But progressives are liars, so it shouldn't be surprising. What is surprising is that Speaker Boehner was going along with the lie, as Boaz points out. Progressives are calling him a "hostage taker" and a "street hoodlum" who will "kill your kid." These are hardly the kind of folks to whom you want to give in.

So, I'm disagreeing with Spree a little bit here. These aren't big cuts and conservatives shouldn't go too easy on the GOP leadership. The tea party scored a victory, but it's just a start. Backing off now with breed complacency. Keep the pressue on.