From: rja@redwood26.cray.com (Russ Anderson)
Subject: Re: Listing the good reasons to vote for Bush
Originator: rja@redwood26
Organization: The 1991 World Champion Minnesota Twins!
Date: 17 Aug 92 13:45:09 CDT


In article <1992Aug16.233652.13536@ncsu.edu>, dsholtsi@csl36h.csl.ncsu.edu (Doug Holtsinger) writes:
> The best reason to vote for Bush is to avoid placing a Democratic
> president and a democratically-controlled Congress in charge of
> spending.  

The increase in real domestic expenditures under Bush is greater than
under Carter or LBJohnson.
------

CATO Policy Analysis No. 147, February 4, 1991

The Profligate President:
A Midterm Review of Bush's Fiscal Policy

By Stephen Moore
[...]

Figure 3 shows just how prolific a spender George Bush has turned out to be
compared with his post-World War II predecessors in the White House.
Domestic expenditures adjusted for inflation have grown at an annual rate
of 10 percent under Bush during his first two years, the most rapid
increase under any of the past eight chief executives.  Extending the
forecast through 1992, the second year of the heralded deficit-reduction
agreement, shows domestic spending still expanding at an annual rate of
more than 9.0 percent (from 1989 to 1992).

_______________________________Figure 3____________________________________

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-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
      Truman  Ike     Kennedy Johnson Nixon   Ford    Carter  Reagan  Bush
      46-53   53-61   61-64   64-69   69-75   75-77   77-81   81-89   89-91
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sources:  CBO, "The 1990 Budget Agreement: An Interim Assesment," December
1990; OMB, Historical_Tables_of_the_United_States_Budget:_Fiscal_1990.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Bush administration is admittedly handicapped because it is confronted
with a Democrat-controlled pro-spending Congress.  That certainly explains
some of the recent spending increases.  Yet for perspective, it is worth
noting that in Reagan's last two years Congress was run by the Democrats,
yet domestic spending was restrained, albeit slightly less successfully
than during his first six years.

Gerald Ford faced an entirely hostile legislature during his years in
office, yet the budget grew only half as fast during his watch as it has
during Bush's.  Ford repelled budget-busting appropriations by liberal use
of the veto.  By contrast, last year Bush did not veto a single spending
bill.  Nor has he sent a single recission request to Congress--a
presidential perogative that allows the White House to trim spending on
specific wasteful programs.

It also might be argued that massive spending totals under Bush are an
anomally because of the savings-and-loan bailout that will cost American
taxpayers almost $300 billion between 1990 and 1993.  Because Bush
inherited the S&L crisis, the large expenditures for the cleanup may
distort his budget record.  However, even if S&L costs are excluded
entirely from the analysis, real domestic outlays are still growing by 6
percent per year under Bush.

-- 
Russ Anderson    |  Disclaimer: Any statements are my own and do not reflect
------------------              upon my employer or anyone else.  (c) 1992
EX-Twins' Jack Morris, 10 innings pitched, 0 runs (World Series MVP!)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc