For quite some time, fiscal conservatism has been a plank of the Republican party. However, George W. Bush's proposed budgets have not reflected that ideal in any way. His newly proposed budget has a deficit of over half a trillion dollars.

A few times in the past hundred and fifty years or so, since the two major politcal parties in the US have been the Democrats and the Republicans, the two parties have swapped sides on an issue, but those changes are usually a result of a schism in one of the parties. (Democrats and Dixiecrats comes to mind, as does the Neoconservative exodus.)

Does the President's new budget proposal, along with his past budget proposals, mark a sea change in the platform of the Republican party, or is it just hypocritical? If the former, will the Democratic party respond by becoming more fiscally conservative? Some of the stances of the Democratic presidential candidates, and, really, the Clinton administration's budgets, already seem to reflect a possible change.