Penny-Wise Pelosi

Brendan Miniter wrote in OpinionJournal Democrats try to reinvent themselves as the party of fiscal discipline.

It is the Republican's fault for abandoning that position.

If Democrats retake the House next year, we can mark the start of the party's resurgence to a speech Nancy Pelosi delivered on Capitol Hill last week. It was there, at a press conference called to attack Republicans over their response to Hurricane Katrina, that the House minority leader actually used the words "waste, fraud and abuse" in talking about government spending.

If the Dems get in, I dont expect to see spending cut back. It will just go into social programs rather than defense, and they will raise taxes and hurt the economy to try to pay for it.

What Ms. Pelosi and a few other Democrats seem to be figuring out in the wake of Katrina is that Americans aren't happy with their government throwing billions of dollars around with little if any accountability. Therefore she's laying out a legislative agenda aimed at capturing the mantle of fiscal responsibility. So far that agenda includes calling for an "antifraud commission" to look into Katrina spending as well as an independent examination--modeled after the 9/11 Commission--of the government's response to the monster storm. And, of course, her party has long attacked Republicans for deficit spending and no-bid contracts to Halliburton in Iraq. A Halliburton subsidiary is already coming under scrutiny for receiving a contract to help rebuild the Gulf Coast.

What Ms. Pelosi is now counting on is that as Republican spending goes through the roof, obstructionism might finally pay off for Democrats. This may come as a shock to some on the right. It shouldn't. Republicans have held the House for almost 12 years and have occupied the White House for all but eight of the past 25 years, yet they have failed to shut off the spending valves in Washington. It was only a matter of time before Democrats ran against wasteful Republican spending. It's also not surprising that Democrats would claim the mantle of fiscal responsibility, for that claim has won them elections in the past. Indeed, it's how Sam Rayburn--the legendary speaker who now has a House office building named after him--won back the House for Democrats in 1954 and handed the party 40 years of uninterrupted control.