On Meet the Press the other day, the president said, “If you look at the appropriations bills that were passed under my watch, in the last year of President Clinton, discretionary spending was up 15 percent, and ours have steadily declined.” I was wondering where he got those numbers, so I asked budget maven Tad DeHaven. He directed me to the bottom of Table S-4 on this page. As you will see if you click on it, the table shows the growth of discretionary spending excluding defense and homeland security. For the last Clinton year, that number was indeed 15. Under Bush, it goes to 6, then 5, then 4, then 1. Making an allowance for looseness in the president’s speech, the numbers appear to be in line with what he said.

But the numbers are misleading. First, he’s talking about budget authority rather than actual spending. Second, he’s excluded half the budget (entitlement spending, which he has expanded), then half the remainder (defense), then a chunk of the fraction that’s left (homeland security). Third, he is excluding supplemental spending bills, too. So the numbers we are left with don’t mean very much. Whether the president is aware of any of this is anyone’s guess.