FEDERAL SPENDING

From the Angry Bear.


What strikes me about this chart is that while spending on Defense and Homeland Security (the red line) has indeed risen quite sharply under the Bush administration, other types of discretionary spending (the green line) have risen only quite modestly, and are still slightly below where they were in 1995.

While Bush 43's budgets have clearly benefited from low interest payments (thanks in part to the low deficits and surpluses of the late 1990s, and in part to the very low interest rates of the past few years), the one other category of spending that has grown rapidly during his presidency is government-provided health insurance.

So perhaps Bush is indeed no Reagan when it comes to non-defense-related discretionary spending. But neither has such federal spending grown dramatically in the past few years. No, the only category where it seems clear that Bush has deliberately let the money flow freely is in defense. So if you think that the federal government's spending has grown too fast in recent years, turn your attention to defense spending and health care. That's where the money has been going.

I think the trends are interesting. While defense spending has surged, social security and health care costs have been on a steady climb.