The projected spending decline for next year is slight -- 2 percent in the United States, to $798 billion, from an estimated $811.7 billion this year.
Spending declined 0.1percentt from a year earlier, the first year-on-year drop since September 1997.
But as states used money elsewhere, "Truth" spending declined, to a low of $35 million last year from $104 million in 2000.
Companies' investments in plants and equipment typically fall sharply in a recession, but consumers' spending declines only slightly.
And Mr Ryan places a ten-year nominal freeze on non-defence discretionary spending (meaning that the real value of spending declines over time, assuming there is inflation).
The money advertisers spent declined 7.5percentt on network TV, and 5.5percentt on cable, from 2007 to 2008, according to TNS Media Intelligence, a firm that tracks ad spending.
For all commercial projects by private builders, spending declined to a rate of $159.2 billion in August, a 2percentt decrease from July.
Corresponding to the shift in the number of entitled persons, spending declined slightly between 2006 and 2008.
Still, software spending growth did occur the past two years 0.6% for 2001 and 1.3% for 2002 while overall IT spending declined by 7.3% and 3.3%, respectively, in that period.
At the same time, R&D productivity, measured in the number of new molecular entities and biologic license applications per R&D dollar spent, declined by 21% a year.
