Budget battle prequel.

• Author: Doherty, Brian
• Position: Follow-Up

In 1995 the Republican Party had just won back control of the House of Representatives in a midterm election, with a young and hopeful Democratic president halfway through his first term. The new House promised to shrink the federal government and curb congressional spending. Sound familiar?

In the July 1995 reason, Carolyn Lochhead assessed the ambitions of a Republican Party promising fiscally responsible government. "Fresh from the victories of their first 100 days as Congress's new majority, Republicans stand on the brink of an epic clash over federal spending," Lochhead wrote. "Republicans are resolved to balance the budget by 2002, the supreme vow that undergirds their aim to shrink government."

They beat their goal, balancing the budget by 1998. But their success was not a product of smaller government. Instead, a growing economy threw off more tax revenue. Between 1995 and the balanced budget of 1998, revenue grew by $310 billion in 2000 dollars. But inflation-adjusted spending was $59 billion higher in 1998 than in 1995. And it hasn't stopped growing since. It isn't just the broader budget battle that looks familiar. "Medicare will be the decisive battlefield in this year's budget war," Lochhead wrote. A decade and a half after the 1994 "Republican Revolution," Medicare remains unreformed. Indeed, in 2003 a Republican House and Republican president added a new, unfunded prescription drug benefit...