In response to some of the comments on my previous post on O'Malley and Ehrlich budget cutting efforts, I went back to the budget documents to try to settle the question of who is the bigger spendthrift, the Democrat or the Republican. For purposes of comparison, I'll look at ongoing spending (not transfers to reserve accounts or funding for capital projects). Here's what we've got (numbers in millions; numbers starting in FY 2007 are estimates and thus could change with final close-out number someday):

FY 2003 (Glendening's last budget): $10,240

FY 2004 (Ehrlich's first): $10,448

FY 2005: $11,159

FY 2006: $12,069

FY 2007: $13,410

FY 2008 (O'Malley's first): $14,254

FY 2009: $14,837

That translates to the following year-over-year growth rates:

FY 2004 (Ehrlich): 2.0 percent

FY 2005 (Ehrlich): 6.8 percent

FY 2006 (Ehrlich): 8.2 percent

FY 2007 (Ehrlich): 11.1 percent

FY 2008 (O'Malley): 6.3 percent

FY 2009 (O'Malley): 4.1 percent

We'll get some updates this afternoon on where the budget analysts think things are going from here. O'Malley pushed for and got plans to ramp up spending on Medicaid, transportation and Chesapeake Bay cleanup during the special session, and time will tell whether the new economic realities will force him to give up on that. Related to that, of course, is the question of slots. If it fails, you can pretty much kiss those new programs goodbye, and if it succeeds, at this rate, we may still find ourselves pretty much just treading water.