Graph: Non-Defense Spending Relative to GDP, Color-Coded by Party in Power, or the Obama Hockey Stick

Via Doug Ross, I saw a neat graph over at a blog called Super Economy in a post called The Obama Hockey Stick. Here is the explanation and the graph:

Let me illustrate how much of a departure from history the Obama Presidency represents in terms of spending. I will graph non-defense federal spending as a share of GDP since 1975. What emerges is what I refer to as the Obama Hockey Stick, parallel to the IPCC global warming Hockey Stick. While federal Non-defense spending was quite constant previous to Obama, it has risen rapidly under his administration.

Now, I love color-coding this graphs to see what emerges, since I have a curious mind and want to see what the data tells me. Below you can see two graphs- the first one was color-coded to display which political party controlled the Presidency, the second one as color-coded to display which political party controlled the Congress:

Looking at the first graph, which displays which political party controlled the Presidency, we can see a sharp increase under President Carter (a Democrat), movement up and down under Reagan and HW Bush (Republicans), a sharp decrease under Clinton (a Democrat), a modest trend up under W Bush (Republican), and then a mind-bottling explosion of an increase under Obama (a Democrat). The conclusion that I draw is that Republicans keep federal defense spending as a share of GDP near the historical average when they are in power, but Democrats are more inconsistent- there was Clinton on one side of the ledger, and Carter and Obama on the other. In particular, Democrat Barack Obama is the worst President in the history of the United States when it comes to this measure.

Looking at the second graph, which displays which political party controlled the Congress, we can see an increase under Democrats (particularly when paired with a Democratic President), a modest decline under a divided Congress, another sharp increase under Democrats (particularly when paired with a Democratic President), a sharp decrease under Republicans, steady under divided government, steady under Republicans, another sharp increase under Democrats (particularly when paired with a Democratic President), and steady under divided government (with the little data that we have). The lesson here is more clear- under Democrats, non-defense spending increased at a greater percentage than GDP increased, and that giving Democrats total control of government (President and Congress) resulting in irresponsible explosions in non-defense spending and/or the collapse of the GDP. Putting Republicans in charge seems like the best bet- they keep this measure steady or decrease it, either by cutting spending or by increasing the GDP.

If I were using this data to vote in 2012, I'd vote Republican up and down the ticket.