"To Govern is To Choose"

It's an old saying, but age does not lessen its truth: "To govern is to choose."

The more I watch our new President, the more I doubt his understanding of this fundamental principle. The stimulus package seemed to have something - indeed, a great deal - for almost everyone. There was little evidence of choice. We can do it all, the President said - borrowing a trillion or two now and paying it back later.

Now comes the new budget outline, following the same paradigm. Plenty for everyone, and it will all be paid for (and the deficit halved) by rising receipts when the boom-time economy magically returns in a year or two.

Once again - for the third presidency in a row - I have the impression that there are no adults in the White House. Clinton made choices, true, but his choices were political choices - forced upon him when the opposition took control of Congress. Bush spent like a Democrat - especially on his war and his military toys - fully expecting the prosperity bandwagon to roll on forever. And now, Mr. Obama seems bent on outdoing them both!

The great irony is, of course, that the very generation which worked ceaselessly to elect Mr. Obama stands to pick up the tab for his undisciplined approach. When the bills eventually come due - which can hardly be that long - it is the Millennials who will face the huge interest payments, dwindling discretionary funds, bloated bureaucracy, decaying environment, and hordes of foreign creditors demanding their pound of flesh.

Three years ago, I was a Democrat - a member of the Virginia State Central Committee. But the longer I hung around Democrats, the more I realized that most rank-and-file Democrats live in a parallel mental universe where nothing has a cost and good intentions justify the worst policy choices.

The best thing that can be said for Democrats seemed to be this: They aren't Republicans.

But that wasn't enough. I quit the Democratic Party (for the second time) and have decided from now on to have nothing to do with either party. Neither has the slightest idea of fiscal discipline - or of making any hard decisions which conflict with their desire to win elections.

I say, "a plague on both their houses!" We need something new - a party of virtue, willing to declare that the Emperor (Republican or Democrat) has no clothes.

Let it start here.

Obama is a superb politician, but nothing more. He looks very good right now, because he is willing to promise everything to everyone, at no cost to anyone. But that will pall, in time. Americans, too accustomed to facing their own dismal finances, aren't about to believe Mr. Obama's sub-prime budget-making for long.

Too bad their only alternative is to elect Republicans in 2010, or 2012...