Why did voters think Democrats would restrain spending?

Opinion Journal:

Hide the children: Democrats say President Bush is being unfair by taking a strict line against their spending, even though he indulged the Republican Congress during its decadent late period.

This budget war is now underway in earnest--six weeks into the fiscal year with only one spending bill signed into law--so let's follow the Democratic logic. Democrats are right that Mr. Bush and the GOP majority did a thorough job of undermining their fiscal credibility prior to 2006. But Democrats are now pursuing their own escalation in federal spending, while insisting on a foolish consistency: Mr. Bush was wasteful then; ergo, he must be wasteful now.

That argument flouts the 2006 election, where voters were plainly fed up with Beltway excess and corruption. Whatever the argument over Iraq, Democrats campaigned loudly as more responsible fiscal stewards and promised to scrub down Capitol Hill. Now back in power, however, they are reverting to their tax and spending habits.

Their collision with Mr. Bush concerns the $22 billion they want to spend above his request. The President's top line would increase nondefense discretionary spending by 6.9%, in nominal dollars--evidently not enough for Democrats. Their extra $22 billion is usually preceded by "only," but once passed it becomes part of the permanent baseline upon which future increases are built. That means that, five years out, federal outlays will have increased by at least $205 billion.

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There's a lesson here in the importance of the Presidency, since Congress obviously won't police itself. Mr. Bush's great mistake was that he never said no to Republican spending monarchs like Jerry Lewis and Roy Blunt. If he's now curbing Democrats David Obey and Kent Conrad, Mr. Bush is doing what he should have done all along.

Democrats say their increases are urgent for pent-up domestic priorities, but that doesn't square with the pork. Typical is a $3 million earmark inserted by South Carolina Democrat James E. Clyburn--in the defense appropriation signed this week by Mr. Bush--for youth programs at the James E. Clyburn Golf Center. Also typical is $301,500 for the International Peace Garden, in Dunsieth, North Dakota, courtesy of Mr. Conrad.

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There is little to no historically precedent of Democrat restraint on spending. They took the windfall of revenue from the Reagan tax cuts and blew right past it into ever higher deficits. The resisted the balance budget of the Republican Congress as though the future existence of the government was at stake. There is no reason for voters to have believed that they would control spending if put back in charge of Congress. It was just a part of the politics of fraud that was use to get some Democrats elected in conservative and marginal districts. Once in power, they promptly ignored their promises. It would be even worse if they had a president of their own party in power. Republicans should be reminding the voters of those marginal districts of the promise not kept.