The Wall Street Journal writes today that Democrats are going to have a tough time enacting their spending priorities, whatever they may be. True enough. But a key statement in the article is very misleading. But cutting costs isn't easy. Spending on nonsecurity discretionary programs has increased by about 23% since Mr. Bush took office. The White House -- prodded by conservative Republicans on Capitol Hill -- has tried to trim spending and asked Congress to cut some nonsecurity discretionary spending for 2006 and 2007. Bush has been in office for 6 years. The dollar has lost value, and the population has grown. So you'd expect spending for discretionary programs to increase. The question then is, what does this increase mean? How does it compare to how other things have changed? This CBPP paper does a better job of putting domestic discretionary spending in context. Controlling for inflation and population growth, this type of spending has grown slowly and unevenly. Compared to GDP, it has decreased. Also, where did the author get this data from? Online editions could easily have a link to the source if it's also online. All this may seem a little nitpicky, but the idea that domestic discretionary spending is out of control is a Republican talking point, and there's no need for the Wall Street Journal to go on repeating it, in a way. Without context, the 23 percent figure makes it seem like spending on domestic discretionary programs has been normal, no more spending is needed to make up for past cuts, and this might be the place where you'd want to make cuts if you had to. As a matter of fact, the White House intends to cut many of these programs soon. For 2008, the White House is expected to try to squeeze funding where it previously sought cuts, including areas like Housing and Urban Development, Education, Labor and the Environmental Protection Agency, all of which were targeted for reductions in 2007. Also, see Dean Baker for a quick takedown of other points in the article.