George Bush's Spending Record

In a Wall Street Journal piece, Kim Strassell interviews George W. Bush, and talks about his spending record, but lets him get away with statistical nonsense.

One perception the president is determined to shift is that of his spending record. "Decision Points" contains one graphic: a table comparing, among other things, President Bush's average spending-to-GDP (19.6%) to that of Bill Clinton (19.8%), Bush 41 (21.9%), and Reagan (22.4%). It also shows that his deficit-to-GDP was 2%—half that of Bush 41 and Reagan.

Anyone with any sense of history might remember that Bill Clinton (and Republicans in Congress) cut spending as a percentage of GDP, and balanced the budget.  Bush came in and (with Congress) grew spending and the deficit.  The average spending measure includes the early years, in which Bush had not implemented all his spending increases (benefiting from spending cuts under Clinton) and the later years, in which spending skyrocketed.

For his number, Bush uses the years 2001-2008, for which he was in office--of course, Bush's budgets represent the fiscal years 2002-2009, which would increase his "average" to 20.2% of GDP.  But even if we give Bush the benefit of ending in 2008, since some of the 2009 budget was enacted under Obama, federal spending as a percentage of GDP increase from 18.2% in 2000 to 20.7% in 2008.  It increased every single year from 2000-2008, except 2007. 

In 2009, the federal budget as a percent of GDP reached 24.7%, and this year reached an estimated 25.4%, the highest since 1945.  Here is the federal budget data for anyone who doesn't trust Bush's memory of his spending record.

As the chart below illustrates--showing all years since 1980--not "averages", even using Bush's measure of years in office instead of years of budget, spending as a percent of GDP:

• Increased in the early Reagan years, then declined;
• Increased under George HW Bush;
• Decreased under Clinton; and
• Increased under Bush and Obama.