This study doesn't consider entitlement spending, as in Medicare and Medicaid. Talking about LBJ's spending habits without mentioning these programs is like talking about his foreign policy without mentioning Vietnam.
The thing is, how would you measure it fairly? Bush's Medicare expansion hasn't taken effect yet, and spending in this category could go up for a lot of reasons that the president can't control.
You can't measure it fairly. There are too many variables. For example, how much blame for LBJ's economic legacy lies with Nixon? That's what we're really talking about, is the legacies of recent presidents, not how much Congress spent strictly during their presidencies.
What Cato did here is to take a president with a terrible legacy, find a number that doesn't make him look too bad, and then compare him to Bush. Just because you have numbers to make a comparison does not mean the comparison is valid.
I appreciate Cato's criticism of Bush on spending, but joining with the "blame Bush for everything" crowd is not constructive. Bush is not solely to blame for rising spending. The transportation bill is a perfect example. It passed 412-8 in the House, so obviously the Democrats were not too offended by the pork in the bill. Sure, it would have been nice if Bush had vetoed it, but the veto can't be the only control on spending. Both parties in Congress have to start showing some responsibility.
