You hear that rhetoric often. However the truth is different. If both the democrats and Republicans propose increasing spending, but one increases less than the other, the one that increases less is said to cut spending. I've seen cases where the larger spending passes and they take credit for it the next year even though the states budget didn't balance (the state has a balanced budget requirement) and so what was actually spend was less than what the spending cut party proposed. (we don't know what would happen if the other party had won, since they claim they would have delivered by spending less elsewhere)