Who Were the 'Biggest Spending Presidents'
Stephen Slivinski, Director of Budget Studies for the Cato Institute, uses "revised data released during the summer by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) to author the Cato Institute's latest Tax & Budget bulletin (Adobe required), which provides "side-by-side comparisons of the spending habits of each president during the last 40 years." Slivinski slices the data in several ways so that he can measure who the big spenders were in terms of discretionary, defense, domestic, or entitlement spending. So while President George W. Bush is the biggest spender in terms of discretionary spending, President Johnson was the biggest spender in terms of total spending while President Nixon was the biggest spender in terms of entitlement spending.
In the conclusion, Slivinski writes, "The expenses related to cleanup and rebuilding of the Gulf Coast region as a result of Hurricane Katrina's destruction have not been fully tallied . . . If these budget increases are not offset by cuts in other areas of the budget, (President) Bush's spending recor will look even worse next year."