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The imaginary spending surge, redux

<p>We talked yesterday about how demonstrably wrong Republicans are when they accuse President Obama of dramatically increasing government spending.</p>
The imaginary spending surge, redux
The imaginary spending surge, redux

We talked yesterday about how demonstrably wrong Republicans are when they accuse President Obama of dramatically increasing government spending. The chart showing government expenditures over the last half-century tell an important tale.

Kevin Drum did a nice job taking this one step further, publishing a chart that breaks this down by president over the last 20 years.

Those who continue to believe Republicans support fiscal restraint while Obama supports out-of-control government spending just aren't paying close enough attention. As Kevin added, "What we have isn't a spending problem. That's under control. What we have is a problem with Republicans not wanting to pay the bills they themselves were largely responsible for running up."

Paul Krugman had some related thoughts on this yesterday -- including some additional charts -- noting that spending levels sometimes appear exaggerated when GDP growth slows and mandatory spending programs grow.

The bottom line remains the same: federal spending in recent years has reached the "slowest pace since 1953-56, when Dwight D. Eisenhower was president."