Bush Administration Spending (2 in a series)

Today's topic are three spending programs that tend to be grouped together: Medicare, Health, and Income Security. These figures are from the Statistical Abstract (spanned over several years) and are in current dollars. The chart below has been converted to chained 2002 dollars. The anomaly around 1976 has to do with a redefinition of the fiscal year in that year (this is a common problem in historical tables of federal spending).

Medicare ($M) Health ($M) Income Security ($M)
1960 0 55 1,514
1961 0 211 1,137
1962 0 268 4,097
1963 0 291 5,071
1964 0 795 7,378
1965 0 1,791 9,462
1966 64 2,543 9,671
1967 2,748 3,351 10,253
1968 4,649 4,390 11,806
1969 5,695 5,162 13,066
1970 6,213 5,907 15,645
1971 6,622 6,843 22,936
1972 7,479 8,674 27,638
1973 8,052 9,356 28,264
1974 9,639 10,733 33,699
1975 12,875 12,930 50,160
1976 15,834 15,734 60,784
1976 4,264 3,924 14,981
1977 19,345 17,302 61,044
1978 22,768 18,524 61,488
1979 26,495 20,494 66,359
1980 32,090 23,169 86,540
1981 39,149 26,866 99,723
1982 46,567 27,445 107,717
1983 52,588 28,641 122,598
1984 57,540 30,417 112,668
1985 65,822 33,542 128,200
1986 70,164 35,936 119,796
1987 75,120 39,967 123,250
1988 78,878 44,487 129,332
1989 84,964 48,390 136,031
1990 98,102 57,716 147,076
1991 104,489 71,183 170,276
1992 119,024 89,497 196,948
1993 130,552 99,415 207,250
1994 144,747 107,122 214,036
1995 159,855 115,418 220,493
1996 174,225 119,378 225,989
1997 194,256 127,630 238,855
1998 192,822 131,442 233,202
1999 190,447 141,079 237,707
2000 197,100 154,500 251,286
2001 217,400 172,300 269,600
2002 230,900 196,500 312,500
2003 244,700 223,100 330,100

These numbers are a little tougher to analyze than Head Start. The enrollment is harder to define as people move on and off of the programs, whereas kids tend to move in and out of HeadStart in fairly predictable patterns as they age. For example, it shouldn't be surprising to see Income Security rise as the economy tanks, and then fall as it improves.

• Real spending on Health increased slightly from the mid 60s until the mid 70s, then stayed flat throughout the Carter era and Reagan's first term. It then accelerated through Reagan's second term and the first Bush term. It slowed (but still grew) a little in Clinton's first term, and then began an acceleration into the second Bush presidency.
• Real spending on Medicare increase steadily (and rapidly) from inception through Clinton's second term, at which point real spending actually decreased for a few years before accelerating again in Clinton's last year. The increase trend has persisted into W's Administration.
• Real spending (and again, these last three paragraphs are a description of realspending) on Income Security accelerated from the mid 60s to the mid 70s, slowed a bit in the late 70s, accelerated slightly in the Carter/Reagan I terms, then stayed flat until the Bush I Administration, accelerated for two years, flattened out as Clinton took office, and accelerated as Bush took office. This is interesting: real spending increases in a rough economic patch, but then stays at the new higher level.
  

From this, I believe that Bush spending looks more like Clinton spending, and Reagan spending looks like Carter spending. I think this underscores the fact that spending - while typically associated with presidents - is really attributable to Congresses. From a fiscally conservative standpoint, it looks as if having a President and Congress of opposite parties is good and turmoil in Congress is good, but once the Congress is firmly controlled by one party for several years (and it doesn't appear to matter which), spending accelerates. Current spending never decreases significantly, but real spending may.