(NRO) — Opponents hope Rick Perry’s spending record as governor may be his Achilles’ heel.

During the debate at the Reagan Library last week, the Romney campaign blasted out an e-mail to reporters entitled, “Perry’s Record on Spending,” with an ominous warning that “under Perry’s leadership, total state spending has increased by an average of nearly 17 percent each budget cycle.” Keep Conservatives United, a PAC supporting Michele Bachmann’s candidacy, released a TV ad earlier this month charging Perry with “doubl[ing] spending in a decade.”

But factor in inflation and Texas’ population boom, and the uptick in spending becomes significantly more reasonable. The same analysis by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram that the Romney campaign used as a source for the 17-percent spending growth each budget cycle reported that “once adjusted for population and inflation, that rate falls to 4.2 percent.” But that rate includes federal dollars sent to Texas. Subtract that, and Perry has decreased spending — the first time any Texas governor has done so since World War II. “When you exclude federal dollars, state spending adjusted for population growth and inflation actually has gone down by 6 percent,” FactCheck.org reported on Perry’s record.