“Pelosi Promises Fiscal Restraint If Democrats Win”

That's the headline House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi managed to get the Wall Street Journal to run after an exclusive interview. She told the Journal's reporters that if Democrats take control of the House next year and raise taxes, they would use the money to reduce the federal deficit. And she promised to reduce the use of earmarks: "Personally, myself, I'd get rid of all of them," she said. "None of them is worth the skepticism, the cynicism the public has... and the fiscal irresponsibility of it."

If Republicans are going to spend like Democrats, it would be nice to think that Democrats might save like Republicans. But let's take a reality check.

According to the National Taxpayers Union, in the first seven months of this Congress Nancy Pelosi introduced 22 bills that would increase spending and only one that would cut spending. Admittedly a better record than some Democrats: Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY), who would be chairman of the Ways and Means Committee in a Pelosi-led Congress, introduced 80 spending bills and three cuts, for a net budget impact of $1.6 trillion. Even the misnamed Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA) introduced 44 spending bills and one cut. Another NTU report showed that Pelosi voted in the interests of taxpayers only 11 percent of the time on tax and budget votes. And her fiscal conservatism has been declining the longer she has been in Congress. In her early years in the House she sometimes voted for taxpayers as much as 25 percent of the time. But not recently.

For taxpayers, it looks like the fall election will be a choice between the devil we know . . . and another devil we know.