You can argue that this is really BS and that the Constitution was never meant to be interpreted this way, but it seems that the American people would prefer to allow this sort of thing, since they voted in people who pledged to interpret the Constitution in such a light (FDR, LBJ and Obama). Obama is doing everything he said he would do before he got elected, so whether or not this is Constitutional, it is democratic.

Here’s the thing, though. Everyone with half a brain knows precisely which components of the national budget are the big cost drivers. So in my view, any approach to budget formulation or reformulation which does not speak primarily to those cost drivers (medicare, social security, debt service to name a few biggies) is not a serious attempt to reform our government’s budgetary approach. Period.

It’s an attempt to curry popular favor by highlighting a few symbolic items that count as easy targets, while avoiding the hard work of addressing the true reasons why our budget is so unbalanced.

And I say this as a 100% equal opportunity kranky critic. The GOP earns a total flunk for this. But from the PoV of genuine budgetary restraint, the democrats are limping along with at best a D minus. And that D minus is for the most part a mulligan based on the defensible (but worth questioning) argument that current economic circumstances require substantial deficit spending.

But when it comes to the establishment of new enduring entitlement programs by the democrats, that stuff earns a flaming F from me as well. We don’t have the money.

Sooner or later, the government, just like most of the rest of us, is going to have to face spending within its reduced means. This is always somewhat more comfortably approached while there is an optional component to making spending reductions. If ignored while optional, it is excruciatingly painful when the cuts are the only remaining alternatives.