There's a myth out there that President Bush is a "big spender." If anything, he's a tax cutter and a stable spender on the macrolevel. Take a look at this chart, via Econospeak. Or maybe he's just a budget shifter. Here's a chart on defense and domestic discretionary spending by EPI: That domestic spending includes homeland security, which has seen huge increases. The share of GDP going to non-defense domestic discretionary programs has fallen from 3.4 percent in 2001 to 3.1 percent in 2007. Whatever Bush is, he's not the big spender on social programs people say he is. Don't believe the hype.