BUSH: Non-homeland, non-defense discretionary spending was raising at 15 percent a year when I got into office. And today it’s less than 1 percent, because we’re working together to try to bring this deficit under control.

Like you, I’m concerned about the deficit. But I am not going to shortchange our troops in harm’s way. And I’m not going to run up taxes, which will cost this economy jobs.

I caught it in the live coverage of the debate, but did not follow up on it–so many lies to deal with. Kevin Drum reported on this one:

Outside of the personal fantasyland Bush seems to inhabit, the truth is simple: spending of all kinds has skyrocketed under his administration — with help from a Republican Congress, of course. Non-defense discretionary spending in particular has increased twice as fast as under Bush 1, three times as fast as Clinton, and four times as fast as Carter. And remember: this doesn’t include defense spending, entitlement spending, or homeland security. 9/11 and Medicare have nothing to do with it.

It’s laughable for Bush to pretend to be a frugal spender, working his tail off to bring an out-of-control Clinton budget down to earth. He’s spending our children’s money as fast as he can print it, and debate fact checkers shouldn’t let him get away with pretending otherwise.

The proof? Drum prints the following data from the Boston.com News showing the non-defense discretionary spending that Bush mentioned:

• Nixon/Ford: 6.8% per year
• Carter: 2.0% per year
• Reagan: -1.3% per year
• H. W. Bush 1: 4.0% per year
• Clinton: 2.5% per year
• W. Bush: 8.2% per year

In chart form:

Sooooo, Bush’s claim that Clinton was raising this spending at 15% and Bush cut it down to 1% is not exactly true. In fact, it is so outrageously untrue that one can only wonder what statistical gymnastics Bush could have performed to get his numbers–or if he was just plain making shit up. Usually, politicians “massage” the numbers to get what they want so they can still claim they were telling some version of the truth, but it is hard to see how Bush could have even done that. Maybe took the absolute worst month from Clinton and best month from his term and then claimed that each represented all from both? Whatever his statistical contortions were, it would be impossible for him to claim that he was not trying to make people believe an outright lie here.

Let’s see how that works. Note the chart above, which shows the real spending rates. Now look at what a chart would have to appear like if the numbers were what Bush claimed:

Doesn’t exactly match up, does it? Not by any stretch of the imagination.

That’s Bush for you.