Tim Fernholz takes issue with me.

This pox-on-both-your-houses nonsense is carefully shielded in “preference.” While it’s true that I prefer eating a pint of Ben and Jerry every day, I know that’s unsustainable. Similarly, Williamson may be right about the relative preferences of the two parties, but if you look at recent history, only the Democrats have shown any inkling of restraint, and, just as important, a willingness to make deals that produce responsible budgets. Democrats occasionally overindulge, but Republican politicians are passed out in the kitchen, surrounded by empty cartons of Chunky Monkey.

Since it’s Friday afternoon: Well, allow me to retort.

Show me that inkling of restraint. I see a lot of Chunky Monkey, with no spinach in sight.

Fernholz’s take is flatly untrue, and it is untrue in a characteristic way, in that it misattributes Congress’s budgetary powers and responsibilities to the president. Congress writes budgets. Congress sets the tax rate. Congress appropriates the money. Nancy Pelosi didn’t like our fighting a war in Iraq, she could have defunded it, if she had the guts. She didn’t: Here’s the proof. Congress runs the show. The last politician to (kinda, sorta) balance the federal budget was Newt Gingrich, if you buy the myth that the budget was balanced during the Clinton era. (I do not. Because it is not true.) It was Gingrich who forced the government shutdown over the deficit. He got killed for it. Politics is like that.

But if you want to talk about other legislative-executive deals, it was George H. W. Bush who put himself on the line and paid a great political price by agreeing to tax increases that he believed to be part of a responsible compromise. Democrats, of course, ran against Bush for agreeing to their budget compromise. He got killed. Politics is like that.

Democrats like to talk about presidents and deficits because they would rather blame Reagan for the deficits of the 1980s than blame the Democratic Congress that actually wrote the budgets. They would rather blame George W. Bush than accept responsibility for the government they currently are running.

But I don’t see how you can call this an example of having Democrats “occasionally overindulge.”

Yeah, blame it on Bush: Democrats control the House, the Senate, and the White House. You want to do something about it, step on up. Don’t worry; I’ll wait. You have until November.

The “pox on both their houses” talk is not at attempt at easy moral equivalence. Republican majorities in Congress have been disgraceful on spending. Democratic majorities in Congress have been disgraceful on spending. I don’t write that to be bipartisan; I write that because it is an inarguable fact. You don’t get $130 trillion in the red by accident.

But Fernholz is hostage to a narrative of Democratic heroism, which makes him say and write dunderheaded things. (Partisanship does that to people.) We were together on a television show not long ago, talking about his alternative-energy fantasies, and Fernholz, confident that we’re going to be able to replace the bulk of our energy infrastructure in an economical and non-disruptive way through a federal jobs program, boasted: “Democrats are the party that put a man on the moon.” That sort of thing embarrasses me; do you really want to be the guy who turns the moon shot into a cheap partisan point? Wouldn’t Republicans blush if Haley Barbour gave a speech and said: “Hey, pass the Republicans’ capital-gains tax cut — we’re the party that freed the slaves!”

Here’s the deal: You can vote Republican, you can vote Democrat, but you’re a fool if you trust either party to get serious about spending. The evidence is all against it, which is obvious to anybody not blinded by partisanship.