Who's the biggest spender? Did the federal government spend more under George Bush Sr., Bill Clinton, or George W. Bush? The record may surprise you.

According to conventional wisdom, the federal government grows faster when a Democrat is in the White House than it does when a Republican is president. Yet the record shows that federal spending actually grew at a slower rate under liberal Democrat Bill Clinton than it did under President George Bush (the elder), or is now growing under President George W. Bush. The record also shows that during Clinton's presidency, unlike either Bush administration, the federal government actually recorded budget "surpluses"--although these reported surpluses were not based on reality (more on this below). In fact, looking back at the Clinton era from the vantage point of today's runaway deficit spending, the Clinton presidency now appears to have been a period of relative fiscal restraint book-ended by two bigger-spending presidents named Bush.

Admittedly, Mr. Clinton does not deserve the credit for this relative achievement, since he had difficulty getting all of his big-spending proposals through Congress. Had he succeeded, he may well have come out on top as the nation's all-time profligate. However, liberal Democrats like Clinton must always contend with congressional Republicans who oppose their big-spending programs--if not to tally, at least to a degree. Republican presidents, on the other hand, are able to get many of their fellow Republicans in Congress to support them, not only because of party loyalty, bar also because the Democrats always make sure that the Republican president's spendthrift proposals appear "conservative" compared to what they would like to spend.

Democrats may complain that Republican "socialist-lite" programs are insufficient, but they are still implementing the Democratic agenda, albeit on the installment plan, when Republicans join them in increasing the size and cost of government. The irony is that, when a liberal Democrat is in the White House, the liberal Democrats have a tougher time getting their congressional agenda implemented because of Republican resistance.

This is not just theory. Under the two Bush presidencies and the Clinton presidency it has been reality.

Spend and Spend

Graph #1 shows how much the government has spent each year from 1989* through 2004. During the administration of "conservative" Republican George Bush (the elder), federal outlays grew at an annualized rate of 5.4 percent, from $1.144 trillion in 1989 to $1.409 trillion in 1993. When liberal Democrat Bill Clinton occupied the White House, federal spending continued to climb, but at a slower annualized rate of 3.6 percent, reaching $1.864 trillion in 2001.

More recently, with "conservative" Republican George W. Bush in the White House, federal spending has not only continued to rise, but has risen at a faster rate. In 2002 the federal government spent $2.011 trillion, a 7.9 percent increase over the previous year. In 2003, federal outlays were $2.158 trillion, a 7.3 percent increase. For the current fiscal year ending on September 30, the Bush administration estimates federal spending at $2.319 trillion, a 7.5 percent increase. In short: Federal spending is now growing more than twice as fast with George W. Bush in the White House than it did when Clinton was president.

Of course, much of the increase in spending during George W. Bush's tenure has been for the Defense Department, very much including the war in Iraq, which, a growing number of Americans are coming to realize, was not a defensive war to protect America but an offensive war to enforce UN resolutions and empower the world body. But with Mr. Bush in the White House and Republican majorities in both houses of Congress, the federal budget has grown in other areas as well. Consider:

* Federal outlays for the Department of Agriculture, which includes the food stamp program as well as farm subsidies, have grown from $68.0 billion in 2001 to an estimated $77.7 billion in 2004.

* Spending for the Department of Education has grown from $35.7 billion in 2001 to an estimated $62.8 billion in 2004.

* And spending for "International Assistance Programs," more commonly known as foreign aid, has grown from $11.8 billion in fiscal 2001 to $17.4 billion in 2004.

It is of course true that presidents can only propose federal budgets. Congress must pass the actual spending bills and then submit them to the president for his signature or veto. But President George W. Bush was a major player in increasing spending in all of these areas. Not only has he called for huge spending increases in the budgets he has submitted to Congress each year, but he has worked hard to win GOP support for big government programs that Republicans traditionally have resisted.

In 2001, for instance, Mr. Bush lobbied strongly for the "No Child Left Behind Act," which was passed by Congress at the end of the year and signed into law by President Bush the following January. In March 2002, he called for a 50 percent increase in foreign aid "core development assistance" over three years, resulting in an annual increase of $5 billion by 2006. In May 2002, he signed into law a gargantuan farm bill he had championed that increases direct farm program spending by $73.5 billion over 10 years. All of these initiatives have been supported by supposedly conservative Republican congressmen who would probably have balked if the initiatives were instead championed by a liberal Democrat in the White House.

More recently, President Bush lobbied hard for a new federal program to provide prescription drug coverage to Medicare recipients. When Congress passed the legislation last November, the price tag was advertised as $400 billion over 10 years. At the time, the Democrats argued for a more generous, and therefore more expensive, prescription drug subsidy program, making Bush's plan appear "conservative" by comparison. This January, however, the Bush administration informed us that the $400 billion plan would actually cost $530 billion over 10 years. The new prescription-drug program could cost a lot more than that--and not just because the revised estimate may still be too low. Now that the program has been established, the Democrats will probably push even harder for more generous benefits, and the Republicans could "compromise" between the Democrats' proposal and the present plan. Yet without Bush's lobbying to win over supposedly conservative Republican congressmen, it is very likely that this new "entitlement" would never have been created in the first place.

Exploding Debt and Deficits

Unlike liberal Democrats, President George W. Bush and his Republican allies in Congress have at least worked to cut taxes. But the burden of government on the economy cannot be reduced by cutting taxes alone. It can only be reduced by lowering taxes through less government. If on the other hand taxes are reduced while spending is increased, then the shortfall between what the government spends and what the government collects in taxes will widen.

The government must borrow the money to compensate for that shortfall, which becomes part of the gross federal debt, more commonly known as the national debt. The government routinely finances the new indebtedness by issuing Treasury bonds that are purchased with new money created by the Federal Reserve System. This resultant infusion of new money into the economy increases the money supply (inflation), thereby diluting the value of the money already in circulation and creating upward pressure on prices. The federal government also finances the national debt by borrowing from the so-called "trust funds," the largest of which is Social Security. And the government (translated: taxpayers) pays interest to the Federal Reserve and other lenders for the money it borrows, thereby adding to the cost of the federal budget.

During the first Bush administration, the Clinton administration, and the new Bush administration, the gross federal debt has risen every year without exception (see Graph #2). However, the national debt grew at slower rate during the Clinton administration than it did during the first Bush administration, and than it is growing now with George W. Bush in the White House. The budget that Bush submitted to Congress earlier this year estimates that the gross federal debt will be $7.486 trillion as of September 30, as compared to $5.770 trillion as of September 30, 2001. The three-year increase ($1.716 trillion) is actually greater than the eight-year increase ($1.419 trillion) from 1993 to 2001, when Clinton was president.

The increase in the national debt from one year to the next tells the true story of deficit spending. But due to accounting gimmickry (the government counts as revenue money borrowed from federal trust funds), the officially reported deficits are less than the actual increases to the national debt (see Graph #3). In fact, during Clinton's second term (1997-2001) the federal government actually claimed budget surpluses, even though the national debt continued to rise each year during that entire period.

Deficit spending is now worse under George W. Bush than it was with either his father or Bill Clinton in the White House. Based on the officially reported "surpluses"/deficits, the huge deficits during first Bush presidency peaked at $290 billion in 1992, ebbed during the Clinton administration, and then returned with a vengeance during the second Bush presidency. Last year the reported deficit was $375 billion; this year's acknowledged deficit will be an estimated $521 billion according to the Bush administration. However, this year's actual deficit will be an estimated $726 billion, based on the estimated increase in the national debt from September 30, 2003 to September 30, 2004.

Bad Forecasting

It is true that the Bush administration forecasts declining deficits after 2004 in its Budget for Fiscal Year 2005, submitted to Congress earlier this year. And it is also true that the same document forecasts a decline in the rate of growth of federal spending--dropping from this year's estimated 7.5 percent spending increase to a 3.5 percent increase in 2005. But the federal government has done a poor job of achieving its budget targets under both Democrats and Republicans, and, generally speaking, the farther out the forecasts, the greater the inaccuracy.

Consider, for instance, the Bush administration's changing budget estimates for the "surplus"/deficit for 2004 (see Graph #4). In 2001, in its Budget for Fiscal Year 2002, the Bush administration projected that the federal government would enjoy a $262 billion surplus in 2004. In 2002, in its next budget, the administration projected that, instead of a $262 billion surplus, the federal government would instead incur a $14 billion deficit in 2004. Last year, the administration projected that the deficit would be $307 billion in 2004, and earlier this year the administration estimated that this year's deficit will be $521 billion.

However, as already noted, a more accurate estimate of this year's deficit would be $726 billion. The difference between a $262 billion surplus and a $726 billion deficit is almost $1 trillion--$988 billion to be precise, more than the entire federal budget in 1985.

The bottom line: "Conservative" Republicans, like liberal Democrats, are big spenders. And unless grass-roots Americans wake up to this fact, and pay attention to what their lawmakers do as well as what they say, the federal spending and debt will continue to grow. Spending can be reduced, [dagger]" and so can the debt (a subject for a future article), but only if a vigilant and organized citizenry insists that the elected officials they send to Washington adhere to the Constitution, regardless of what political party they belong to.

* Unless otherwise noted, all years ate fiscal years, beginning on October 1 of the previous calendar year and ending on September 30.

[dagger] To get involved in the fight to "lower taxes through less government," see the ad for TRIM on page 18.