Presidential candidate Gov. Ron DeSantis has a point that federal spending is poised to grow by about 50% between 2019 and 2024. But calling it growth in “agencies and government” ignores that two-thirds of federal spending goes directly to Americans.
To adjust for these factors, experts recommend comparing federal spending with the nation’s gross domestic product; a growing economy can support higher federal spending. Adjusted for GDP, the rise in spending from 2019 and 2024 was more modest — 11%.
Bureau of Labor Statistics data shows that full-time federal government employment — including the military and the U.S. Postal Service — has increased by 2.7% from 2019 to mid-2023, a rate far below the growth in spending. Much of the growth in federal outlays has come from rising entitlement spending, a category that includes Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and veterans’ benefits. In 2022, a little more than two-thirds of federal outlays went toward entitlements. An additional 7% went for interest.
This share of federal spending, known as discretionary spending, accounted for a bit more than one-quarter of all federal spending. Of this, 11% went for defense and the remaining 14% went for areas other than defense.
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