With their vote this week to impose strict limits on future federal spending, House Republicans continued an argument not so much with Democrats as with demography. The real current they are seeking to reverse is not some ideological drive from President Obama to convert America into Sweden; it’s the inexorably rising cost of providing retirement security, especially health care, to an aging society. The cut, cap, and balance bill that Republicans muscled through the House would authorize an increase in the federal debt ceiling only after Congress approved a constitutional amendment to balance the federal budget. The bill doesn’t specify...