Everyone knows the Republican Party is the party of small government, right? Yet, when Americans recently were asked, "when it comes to controlling government spending, which party do you think would do a better job?" they said: Democrats 31%, Republicans 33%, both 16%, neither 18% and not sure 2%, according to a poll by The Wall Street Journal. This is an enormous shift in a very few years. When Ronald Reagan was president, the GOP had a huge advantage. Now the two political parties are virtually even on spending. Why would perceptions change so dramatically?

For decades, the American Conservative Union has conducted a widely used rating of how conservatively Representatives and Senators vote on the bills before them. In their new ratings for 2003, the conservatism scores for Republican members of Congress were the lowest ever recorded, mostly on spending issues. Where typically 25 or more members of the House of Representatives would receive perfect 100 percent conservative ratings-and 60 members did so in 2002--there were only two with a perfect score in 2003, Mike Pence (IN) and Zack Wamp (TN). An additional 46 members scored a near-perfect 96 score in 2002, while only eight did so in 2003. There were only 169 members with a minimal ACU rating of over 80 percent-its definition of a conservative-compared to 2002 when there were 198 conservative members

In the Senate, where 19 Republicans received a perfect 100 percent conservative rating in 2002, only Chuck Hagel (NE), John Ensign (NV) and Don Nickles (OK) earned a perfect score in 2003. Only one Senator, John Sununu (NH), scored 95% conservative or above, compared to seven the preceding year, and only thirteen Republicans voted 90% conservative or higher last year. In most cases, again, poor ratings were the result of voting for too much spending. Small government conservatives in Congress were an endangered species in 2003.

The results under different presidents are illuminating. Not surprisingly, President Reagan was the only recent president under whom domestic discretionary spending was actually reduced, by a -1.3 percent average per year during his term, according to Club for Growth data. Surprisingly, the second ranking president under whom spending was restrained was Jimmy Carter, when it increased by only 2.0%, basically limited by economic conditions. Under Bill Clinton spending only increased by 2.5% per year average, especially restrained after the GOP took control of the House in 1994. Spending under the first president George H.W. Bush increased by a sharp 4.0% per year and under Lyndon Johnson it increased by only a bit more, 4.3 % (entitlements were another matter). The really big spending increases took place under Republicans: Richard Nixon with a 6.8% boost per year, Gerald Ford with 8.0% and, the most, under George W. Bush with an average 8.2% increase per year.

The swelling in non-defense discretionary government spending under the current president has been more than three times higher than the average for the Bill Clinton years. No wonder public perceptions have changed. Entitlements, too, have increased more under President Bush than any president since Johnson, with the new Medicare prescription drug entitlement creating $7 trillion in new long-term unfunded liability, about the same as that for all of Social Security. In general, Congressional Republicans only seem to remember their limited government roots when there is a Democratic president. While defense was upgraded marginally last year and there were some impressive social conservative victories, such as passing a partial birth abortion bill, spending on liberal-created health, welfare and education programs and entitlements exploded. There was very little for small government conservatives to crow about in 2003.

Limited government conservatives have been an important element in the winning Republican coalition ever since Governor Reagan created it in 1980. At the end of the day, they might stick with President Bush but they just could notice the history that a Democrat president and an active Republican Congress means less domestic spending than under a Republican president. A recent Washington Post-ABC poll shows that against an unnamed Democratic presidential candidate, the President only leads by 48 to 46 percent, a margin tight enough that small government conservatives could make the difference if they decided only to cast their vote for Congress in 2004.

Donald Devine, former director of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, is editor of ConservativeBattleline.com, the American Conservative Union Foundation's journal of opinion.