No Wonder We Have a Deficit

From the WSJ:

The only problem is that most of this has zero chance of being implemented. A review of the first five Bush budgets by Phil Kerpen of the Free Enterprise Fund finds that the President has requested an annual increase in expenditures of roughly 4% for discretionary spending, but that Congress has delivered a yearly increase closer to 8%. Congress has spent $380 billion more over the past five years than Mr. Bush has originally sought.

Consider what happened last year, when Mr. Bush proposed a budget along similar lines. The taxpayers cooperated by lifting their revenue payments far above Treasury projections -- by 14.5%, or $274 billion, in Fiscal 2005 (which ended last September 30). Congress turned around and spent most of that windfall, increasing outlays in Fiscal 2006 by a proposed $237 billion, or one of the largest increases ever in a single year.