But past that, remember the winners will also have the final say on federal spending and taxing. How do you feel about the "big spender -- tax later" party? You know, the Republicans.

Under the Bush Presidency and Republican Congress spending has soared, rising about 10 percent relative to the size of the economy. Between 2000 and 2007, federal spending is estimated to have risen by roughly $1,000,000,000,000. That's trillion, as in 1,000 billion. Or, to put it another way, $13,000 a year more is being spent for each American "family of four."

We are, of course, at war. Whether or not one thinks we should be at war or approves of the way we've conducted the war, the fact is that we are at war. And wars cost money. It's not surprising that defense spending has risen.

Except that most of the increase isn't for defense. About 80 percent of the increase is in non-military, non-defense categories. Throw in the Department of Homeland Security, and still more than three-quarters of the increased budget has nothing to do with foreign wars or domestic security.

Averaged over recent decades the Federal government spends about one dollar in five in the U.S. economy, but the amount varies across different presidencies depending on both political decisions and the state of the economy.

Under Presidents Reagan and Bush Sr., spending ranged between about 21½ and a half and 23½ percent of Gross Domestic Product ("GDP," that is, America's output for the year). Clinton-era federal spending plummeted to about 18½ percent of GDP—a drop of about a fifth from the Republican peak—in large part because the growth of spending was restrained while the economy expanded.

Under the current Bush Administration spending has grown rapidly, giving back much of the drop achieved under the Democratic presidency.

How does this federal spending get paid for? There are two options: the government can raise taxes now. Or it can run a deficit—meaning taxes will have to be raised down the road to pay for today's spending. In recent decades, the Republicans have chosen the run-a-deficit-now/raise-taxes-later approach.

The fact that "Republican means deficit" is a historical turnaround. This was brought home to me this month as I was revising my macroeconomics textbook and had to take a hard look at the data.

Over the long view of U.S. history, significant deficits were typically run only to pay for wars. The national debt was run up during the Revolutionary War, and then slowly paid off. Same story for the Civil War. There was another big debt for World War I and then a really big one for World War II.

After World War II, we slowly paid the debt down, relative to the size of the economy, with the pay-down continuing even through Korea and Vietnam.

But around the beginning of Reagan's first term, the government started to run up the national debt during peacetime. The run-up continued through the Bush Sr's Administration.

Under Clinton, we returned to the traditional peacetime pattern of paying off the debt. Indeed, our national debt was dropping so quickly that some economists worried there would no longer be an adequate supply of government bonds to provide safe investment vehicles.

The current Bush Administration took care of that problem. The deficit has soared and the national debt is once again climbing.

And to be clear, the new, high deficit is not due to defense spending. Between 2000 and 2006, defense spending rose by $241 billion. In 2000, the government ran a $236 billion surplus. By 2006, we had a $423 billion deficit. In other words, almost two-thirds of the deficit came from something other than defense.

When you vote for House and Senate next month, you might want to give some thought to which party really stands for fiscal conservatism in today's economic world.