Republican Spending: Another Reason to Vote for Democrats

Brian Riedl writes:

Federal spending in 2006 is set to rise 9 percent, the largest increase since 1990 and enough to earn Congress near failing grades from the Heritage Foundation’s third quarter report card.

National Review’s John Miller reads this and writes:

This really ought to encourage conservatives who are wondering whether they should bother to vote in November

A few comments:

(1) Riedl is talking about nominal spending increases and is not inflation-adjusted.

(2) Nominal Federal spending grew by 9.86% in 1992.

(3) While nominal Federal spending grew by only 3.24% per year during Clinton’s eight years, nominal Federal spending grew by 6.5% per year over the past five years when Republicans dominated the Federal government.

Alas, we are stuck with George W. Bush as President, so maybe Mr. Miller is saying that fiscal conservatives should end Dennis Hastert reign as Speaker of the House by voting for Democrats in November.