President Obama’s detractors apparently like to push the idea that he is responsible for jacking up government spending to new heights, but The New York Times’ Paul Krugman took it upon himself to do away with this “myth,” as he put it, in his column Sunday. –KA

Paul Krugman in The New York Times:

Here’s what you need to know: The whole story is a myth. There never was a big expansion of government spending. In fact, that has been the key problem with economic policy in the Obama years: we never had the kind of fiscal expansion that might have created the millions of jobs we need.

Ask yourself: What major new federal programs have started up since Mr. Obama took office? Health care reform, for the most part, hasn’t kicked in yet, so that can’t be it. So are there giant infrastructure projects under way? No. Are there huge new benefits for low-income workers or the poor? No. Where’s all that spending we keep hearing about? It never happened.

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