[NittanyLion]

What matters is the absolute number as a % of GDP.

I ran through this on another thread, allow me to post it again here. Absolute number as a % of GDP is an incomplete metric. A president who inherited discretionary spending as [say] 10% of GDP and whittled it down to 6%, has a superior record to one who inherited [say] 3% and allowed it to climb to 5%.

Bush's numbers in this regard are SUPERIOR to Ronald Reagan's in the same year of their presidency. Think about that. They are SUPERIOR.

Simply not true.

[Owen]

>
What matters is the absolute number as a % of GDP.

I ran through this on another thread, allow me to post it again here. Absolute number as a % of GDP is an incomplete metric. A president who inherited discretionary spending as [say] 10% of GDP and whittled it down to 6%, has a superior record to one who inherited [say] 3% and allowed it to climb to 5%.

Bush's numbers in this regard are SUPERIOR to Ronald Reagan's in the same year of their presidency. Think about that. They are SUPERIOR.

Simply not true.
>

It is true. Now, there is nothing wrong with your reasoning. What is wrong is your conclusion. It faces the cold reality of mathematics. No president of the past several decades has "whittled down" domestic discretionary spending from 10% to 6% and waved his arms in celebration because It Hasn't Happened And Probably Never Will.

Domestic discretionary as a % of GDP has hung between 3 and 4% for multiple decades. That's right. Decades. It is a multi decade norm. Between 3 and 4% is where it is, and where it has been, and that's where it will probably be in the future. Bush's spending is not at all out of line with norms of past presidents and it is superior to Reagan's.

So the metric I specified is in fact accurate, real, and proper. What matters is not claimed growth or reduction when the number hardly changes at all over so long a period of time. What matters is the absolute value -- which IS SUPERIOR to Ronald Reagan's in the same year of their presidencies, though, because both are between 3 and 4%, not by much.

Feel free to post that to other threads, too.