The size of the federal government decreased under Clinton...

and increased under Bush. is this true?

If so how do the people who claim the GOP is the party of smaller government counter this?

n/t

those are FACTS. Right wingnuts ignore FACTS.

almost all of it was the closings of useless military bases overseas..

on the domestic front, everything grew..about as much as it has grown under dubya

Do you have that shows otherwise?

under VP Al Gore's Reinventing Government initiative.

and an excellent way to get fence sitters who lean
conservative our way .

Clinton shrank the size of the federal govt., he reduced the numbers on welfare, placing limits to the length of time one can remain on welfare(five years I believe), he reduced , or rather fixed, the number of dependants one might claim for welfare payments, he balanced the budget and began to pay down the debt, he brought almost full employment as well.

Compare that record, one I consider as a moderate republican agenda, by the by,to the record of Georgie the lesser (less intellect, less common sense, less, less,less)...........

Since Kennedy was president, federal spending and the federal deficit (both in current dollars and as a percentage of GDP) always have increased more under republican presidents than under democratic presidents.
http://w3.access.gpo.gov/usbudget/fy2001/sheets/hist01z3.xls

(Note: The numbers for the first year of a president's term are from the budget of the preceding term. Also, the estimates for 2000-2005 no longer apply. There were surpluses in 2000 and 2001, and huge deficits now and forever.)

The federal government employed fewer people at the end of Clinton rather than at the beginning, but...

If you take away two numbers, the size of the government grew.

The two numbers were

the reductions in the military, including civilians working for it, which had more to do with the end of the Cold War and the "peace dividend" which Clinton really had nothing to do with, and

the dissolution of the RTC (the Resolution Trust Corp), which was the federal agency that was created to deal with the crisis of the Savings and Loans. It employed many people at its height5, but sunsetted itself into oblivion by law. All that was passed before Clinton took office, so he had nothing to do wth those job reductions either.

So, the answer is factually true. There were fewer federal workers after Clinton than before, but take away two things he didn't have anything to do with, and the answer would not have been the same.

...but it's not so much because of Clinton and Bush as it is because of the boom and the bust.