OUR REPUBLICAN PRESIDENT:

The fiscal years 2009-2011 represent spending under the Nancy Pelosi-Harry Reid Congress supported by President Obama. The stimulus boosted spending to a modern record of 24.4% of GDP in 2009, and it stayed high at 23.4% in 2010 and 2011 even as the stimulus was supposed to be winding down. Overall federal outlays hit $3.6 trillion in 2011 and under normal Beltway practice would have kept on climbing.

Then Republicans won the election in 2010 on a mandate to cut spending. Their first-year leverage was limited since they took power in January after fiscal 2011 was nearly five months old and Congress had already voted its budget for the fiscal year that ended in September 2011.

But note what happened starting in fiscal 2012. Total federal outlays fell two years in a row--from $3.6 trillion in 2011 to $3.45 trillion in 2013 before starting to rise again to $3.51 trillion in 2014. The spending decline was even more marked as a share of the economy, falling for three straight years--from 23.4% in 2011 to 20.3% in 2014.

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