...and be able to know the units of the Y axis (is it a percentage?), or know if this is adjusted for inflation, or how population is extrapolated from the 10 year census, is spending counted when the dollars are committed - or when they are spent, etc, etc.

Too many variables for so little an explaination.

Here's some data on fed spending vs gdp (which I believe is a better metric than per capita):

1977 - $409 billion vs $2.0 trillion = 20%
1980 - $590 billion vs $2.8 trillion = 21%
1988 - $1.1 trillion vs $5.1 trillion = 22%
1993 - $1.4 trillion vs $6.66 trillion = 21%
2000 - $1.8 trillion vs $9.8 trillion = 18%
2001 - $1.9 trillion vs $10.2 trillion = 19%
2008 - $3.0 trillion vs $14.3 trillion = 21%
2009 - $3.5 trillion vs $14.0 trillion = 25%
2011 - $3.6 trillion vs $15.0 trillion = 24%
2012 est - $3.8 trillion vs $15.6 trillion = 24%

I'm not going to try and draw many conclusions from this...too much to argue about: who handed what off to whom, which party controlled congress, who got saddled with non-discretionary spending, times of war, ...the list is endless.

The one that can be drawn is that the trend, in recent years, is up, for spending....while gdp has stagnated. There are alot of 'sky is falling' people out there, who think we are doomed to a Greece style calamity. I don't agree. I think the current imbalance can be overcome, with strong growth.

Our ability to grow is the true question...or more importantly, how do we grow. More spending? Belt tightening. That is what this next election will be about...not a graph which goes back to Nixon.

It is the hard right Clydes wing propaganda machines take on spending and their insistence that this current President (a socialist) is spending us all into a hole we can't climb out of........and you are right about growth which is finally starting to happen.......