January 16, 2014
This adjective appeared in a top of the hour news piece (sorry, no link) referring to the spending bill approved by Congress on Wednesday evening. It would be interesting to know how it made this assessment. While the government spends more money each year than any of its listeners will see in their lifetime, it spends less relative to the size of its economy than almost any other wealthy country. It is also spending less relative to the size of the economy than it did in the years 2009-2012. The domestic discretionary portion of the budget, which was close to half of the spending bill, is smaller relative to the size of the economy than it has been in decades.
Given this reality, the piece could have with more legitimacy used an adjective like “reduced” or “sharply reduced” as “enormous.”
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