The biggest federal government ever?

How big is the federal government?

In a recent TV ad, Democratic Senate candidate Kay Hagan claims that U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole has created the "biggest government ever."

In material backing up the claim provided to Dome, the campaign noted that the federal government is estimated to spend $2.9 trillion in fiscal year 2008, the largest dollar amount in history.

But a spokeswoman for the federal Office of Management and Budget said that the federal budget has grown nearly every year since World War II.

She said a better comparison is the percentage of the gross domestic product, a measure of the size of the nation's economic output. (See Table 1.2, third column from the left.)

By that measure, 2008 is the 27th largest budget year since 1930, with federal spending that is estimated to be 20.5 percent of the gross domestic product.

The average annual percentage during that time was 18.9 percent and the median was 19.4 percent.

The budget was largest during World War II, with spending reaching 43.6 percent of GDP in 1943 and 1944. It was also high during the mid 1980s and early 1990s.

It was lowest in the 1930s during the Great Depression.