How Does the Bush/Obama Recovery Compare to the Reagan Recovery?
The current recovery from recession doesn’t look so good when you compare it to previous recoveries. The Federal Reserve Bank of
Of course, under Reagan federal spending did not explode the way it has done under Bush/Obama. In 1981, federal spending as a percentage of GDP stood at 22.2 percent and increased to 23.5 percent before declining over the remainder of Ronald Reagan’s term, falling to 21.2 percent in 1989. In 2007, federal spending stood at 19.6 percent of GDP, but rose by nearly 6 percentage points to 25.4 percent by 2010. The Office of Management and Budget projects federal spending will be 25.1 percent in 2011.
