No, federal spending isn’t surging. It’s falling.

[jpak]

http://pollways.bangordailynews.com/2013/01/03/maine-politics/no-federal-spending-isnt-surging-its-falling/

Watch out for raging misinformation about the federal budget.

Here’s Scott Moody from the Maine Heritage Policy Center, making a claim that doesn’t stand up to scrutiny:

Federal spending has grown tremendously in the last few years…As a percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), federal spending jumped to 24.1 percent in FY 2011 from 20.1 percent in FY 2006. The historic average over the last four decades is 20.7 percent of GDP…[The] federal government is growing as a percent of the economy.

Above Moody uses the correct metric — federal spending as a percent of the gross domestic product (GDP), a measure of what’s produced by the economy.
But the statement is wrong, both for simple and more complex reasons.

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[sinkingfeeling]

1. Thanks.