Bush: Mr. Big Spender

Is Paul Krugman smoking crack? Federal spending has gone up for more besides Iraq, Medicare, and Medicaid.

But where did that increase come from? Three words: defense, Medicare, Medicaid. That’s the whole story. Defense up from 3 to 4% of GDP; Medicare and Medicaid up from 3.4% to 4.6%, partially offset by increased payments for Part B and stuff. Aside from that, there’s been no major movement.

Behind these increases are the obvious things: the war McCain wants to fight for the next century, the general issue of excess cost growth in health care, and the prescription drug benefit.

The White House hid the true cost of the Medicaid Bill.

The following month, the administration announced the program would actually cost $534 billion to implement, nearly 40 percent more than advertised. "Had people known that real price, the bill wouldn't have ever made it to the House floor for a vote," says Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill. (Similarly, the administration refused to even submit an estimate for the war while Congress was debating whether to give the president authorization to use force.)

Then, last month, Richard Foster, the chief actuary at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the top independent Medicare cost analyst, revealed he had been threatened by the Bush administration that he would be fired if he told Congress the true cost of the policy. He received orders in June 2003 from his boss, Thomas Scully, the Bush-appointed director of the Medicare program, instructing him to ignore information requests from members of Congress who were drafting the drug bill. In the past, lawmakers had free access to the actuary's estimates. And they assumed they were getting a true statistic as they considered the bill this time.

Iraq, Medicaid and Medicare hardly explains why Bush didn't veto a spending bill until Democrats took over Congress. The chart below shows that nondefense spending went up 28 percent during Bush's first term.



Matters got worse in 2006. Discretionary spending does not count Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and other entitlement programs. Nondiscretionary spending went up to 35.8 percent from 2001 to 2006.

Defense was taken out of the first numbers I cited. Medicare and Medicaid in the second. Bush's spending increases are still the worst since LBJ's administration.

Here are numbers from the Congressional Budget Office for discretionary spending.

Defense

2001 - 306.1
2002 - 349.0
2003 - 405.0
2004 - 454.1
2005 - 493.6
2006 - 520.0
2007 - 548.6

International

2001 - 22.5
2002 - 26.2
2003 - 27.9
2004 - 33.8
2005 - 39.0
2006 - 36.1
2007 - 34.5

Domestic

2001 - 320.8
2002 - 359.2
2003 - 392.5
2004 - 407.6
2005 - 435.8
2006 - 460.7
2007 - 458.9

Bush has cried for an end of earmarks. During the Republican Congress of 2006, earmarks rose by $16 billion. Krugman is wrong. Budget increases can not by blamed solely on Iraq, Medicaid and Medicare. It is a greater challenge to find where the budget has decreased.