A Washington Post feature says that Connecticut Senate challenger Ned Lamont’s website shows him to be “a fiscal conservative, a social liberal and a foreign-policy moderate.” (The Post also refers to Lamont’s 150-word statements on the issues as “elaborate position papers,” which seems to reflect low expectations for political discourse.) Since I expressed doubt a couple of days ago about the existence of fiscally conservative Democrats, I was intrigued.

So what does the website show? Lamont is indeed socially liberal, for better (opposition to gay marriage bans, creationism, the Terri Schiavo intervention, stem cell restrictions, and other schemes to impose conservative moral values on other people) and worse (support for hate crimes laws, affirmative action, and other schemes to impose his moral values on other people).

But “fiscal conservative”? Let’s go to the tape. On his website he promises to spend more money on national health insurance, universal preschool, all-day schools, “an overarching plan for clean energy and energy independence,” and “a serious, long-range infrastructure plan to upgrade our schools, public transportation, highways, our sewage treatment, and our levees in below sea-level areas [and] a transportation strategy which interconnects cities and suburbs, inner cities and jobs and affordable housing, and ports and airports.” Sounds expensive.

(As a good big-government liberal, he’s also opposed to school choice, private Social Security accounts, and free trade. But our subject today is taxes and spending.)

Virtually all the references to “budget” on Lamont’s site are boasts of how he increased various budgets as a city councilman. He has declared his opposition to earmarks, but of course earmarks — while notorious — are only a tiny part of the federal budget. Nowhere does he promise a balanced budget. He does promise to roll back Bush’s tax cuts — that is, to raise taxes — but that would hardly be sufficient to close the current deficit and pay for his sweeping spending plans, even if higher marginal tax rates did not reduce work, investment, and tax revenue.

Alas, the search for a fiscally conservative Democrat continues.