The White House has proclaimed for all to hear that the Bill Clinton tax rates created magical years of prosperity. By the same token, they don’t actually want to return to the Clinton tax rates for those earning less than $250,000 per year. But they ignore the biggest fact of all: Bill Clinton never spent like Barack Obama.

Adjusted for inflation, Clinton spent $2.24 trillion in 1993; that level stayed relatively stagnant, rising to $2.41 trillion in 2001. Now let’s look at Obama’s budgets starting this year: $3.8 trillion. By the time we hit 2022 under Obama’s plan, we’ll be spending $4.77 trillion. That means that Obama is spending twice what Clinton did.

That’s why no Democrat will ever agree to go back to Clinton-era spending. If they did, they’d have to agree not to $1.2 trillion in spending cuts over 10 years, but to $1.4 trillion in spending cuts this year alone. That’s 37% of the federal budget.