Bush's "discretionary" spending not so discretionary

Fact Check
"That's an average annual growth rate of 2.4% during Clinton's eight years, compared to an average of 11.8% during Bush's first three."

"Discretionary spending -- meaning spending that is subject to annual legislative appropriations, as opposed to spending for entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare -- actually grew only 5.6% in Clinton 's last budget year (fiscal year 2001, which began October 1, 2000 ).

Since then discretionary spending has not "steadily declined" as the President said, but has gone up. In fact, the growth has been much faster than under Clinton . In the first year for which President Bush signed the spending bills discretionary spending growth soared to 13.1%, and annual growth remained in double digits through the current fiscal year."