From the Associated Press. I noticed about halfway through the article, that suddenly the percentage calculations disappeared. About when the numbers were being split between defense and homeland security and the rest of the spending. I took the liberty of adding those percentages (in boldface) to keep a bit of perspective. Annual numbers are apparently the total percentage divided by three (2002 through 2004).

One hopes this trend can be reversed.

How federal spending has grown during President Bush's first three years.

Figures are by federal budget years, which begin Oct. 1 of the previous calendar year. The first budget year Bush fully controlled was 2002, which began Oct. 1, 2001.

Data is from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, the Treasury Department, and the White House Office of Management and Budget.

* Overall spending: 2001 (President Clinton's final budget year) $1.864 trillion; 2002 $2.011 trillion; 2003 $2.157 trillion; 2004 (estimate) $2.305 trillion.

* Overall Bush spending increase, 2002 through 2004: $441 billion, or 23.7 percent.

* Last three-year period when overall spending growth was that fast: 1989 through 1991, 24.3 percent.

* Overall Clinton spending increase, 1994 through 2001: $454 billion, or 32.2 percent.

Discretionary spending, the one-third of the budget that must be approved annually by the president and Congress.

Numbers are in budget authority, or new spending Congress and the president enact. Some of the money is for long-range projects like defense contracts and is spent over several years.

Numbers include midyear emergency bills enacted to finance wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and other costs, including $20 billion for 2001 provided under Bush. They also assume enactment of a measure combining seven 2004 spending bills into one, awaiting Senate approval.

* Overall discretionary spending: 2001 $664 billion; 2002 $735 billion; 2003 $846 billion; 2004 $873 billion.

* Overall discretionary spending increase under Bush, 2002 through 2004: $209 billion, or 10.5 percent annually.

* Overall discretionary spending increase under Clinton, 1994 through 2001: $141 billion, or 3.4 percent annually.

A Bush administration breakdown of discretionary spending. This uses a category the White House calls defense and homeland security, which includes the Pentagon, the Homeland Security Department, and other programs it considers homeland security. Numbers are in budget authority.

Defense/homeland security spending: 2001 $333 billion (includes $20 billion enacted under Bush in emergency bill after Sept. 11, 2001); 2002 $384 billion; 2003 $477 billion; 2004 $492 billion. An increase of $159 billion, or 47.7 percent (15.9 percent annually).

All other discretionary spending: 2001 $331 billion; 2002 $351 billion; 2003 $369 billion; 2004 $381 billion. An increase of 15.1 percent, or 5 percent annually.

Spending for large benefit programs. Figures for 2004 are CBO estimates:

Social Security: 2001 $429 billion; 2002 $448 billion; 2003 $467 billion, 2004 $491 billion. An increase of 14.5 percent, or 4.8 percent annually.

Medicare: 2001 $238 billion; 2002 $256 billion; 2003 $277 billion; 2004 $288 billion. An increase of 21 percent, or 7 percent annually.

Medicaid: 2001 $130 billion; 2002 $148 billion; 2003 $161 billion; 2004 $175 billion. An increase of 34.6 percent, or 11.5 percent annually.

Total increases in elderly entitlement spending: $157 billion, which is 21 percent, or 7 percent annually.

While I would be the first to say that there is much of this government bloat that is not justifiable under any circumstances, one can see that if the defense and security factor is split out, things would look a bit different. Under Clinton, conversely, defense spending was completely flattened out over his administration in dollars, dropping from 20.7 to 16.5 percent of outlays.

In other words, it might be a bit more realistic to compare the 3.4 percent annual average discretionary growth under Clinton to the 5 percent growth in non-defense discretionary spending under Bush.

On the gripping hand, I suspect that a lot of the stuff lumped under "defense and security" is pork tacked onto bills labeled under those functions, so that would tend to tilt things back against Bush again. You can cook this kind of thing all day.