Here’s hoping the first thing this CPO will go after is TARP.

How much of an actual “step” it is, that remains to be seen.

After all, it’s very easy to say stuff, and also pretty easy to create an agency and make up jobs for the people there to do. I don’t recall anyone from either side saying that they were opposed to going through the budget line by line and finding cuts.

Notice how no one ever says that they are against fiscal discipline, they simply oppose it in action by proposing spending regardless of whether the government actually has the money. I support Obama, but I don’t have to be a genius or a financial wiz to wonder just how the goal of restoring fiscal discipline squares with the suggestion that soon after he takes office, Obama is prepared to “boldly” enact a “stimulus” that will, irrespective of its benefits, spend $775 BILLION that the government does not have and will have to borrow.

So to sum up, sure, let’s all be cheery that Obama is making a nod to fiscal discipline. But at this point, we have absolutely no reason to belive that it’s more than lip service. The past decade or two has shown us a parade of new government “czars” of one type or another. How many of these czars have become well-known heros of American history for leading us toward the solutions to the problems they were appointed to address? Zero, right?

I truly hope it is more than lip service. For example, when it comes to struggling states begging for money, I hope it comes in the form of LOANS from the fed government, given out in concurrence with each state’s budget cuts. So for example, maybe the feds will loan states $1 for every $2 in budget cuts they make. No cuts, no help.