If we're the addict, who's the dealer?

Victor Davis Hanson, writing about Republicans' recent spendiness and its ramifications for the future:

...in fears of recession, and resulting political suicide, each new President now urges more borrowing and spending that allows him reelection and us yet another reprieve. No one dares tell the heroin addict that his habit is unsustainable, and that while each new fix brings temporary relief, in aggregate the injections are destroying the user himself. So it should have fallen to conservatives to yell, “Stop”, to risk recession and to change the ethos to ensure monies were not spent unless the source of additional revenue was assured.

So who was the addict? Was it the Republican Party, which sent itself into the minority by giving in to temptation? Or is it the nation as a whole, unable to control its desires even though a large part of it knows that it's doing the wrong thing, an eventually-deadly thing?