WASHINGTON -- In all the recent reports, speeches and news conferences concerning the federal budget outlook -- including the administration's proposed budget for 2011 -- hardly anyone has posed these crucial questions: what should the federal government do and why; and who should pay? We ought to go back to first principles of defining a desirable role for government and abandon the expedient of assuming that anyone receiving a federal benefit is morally entitled to it simply because it's been received before.
We have a massive candor gap, led by President Obama but also implicating most leaders of both parties. The annual budget necessarily involves a bewildering blizzard of numbers. But just a few figures capture the essence of our predicament.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/02/08/the_candor_gap_100193.html
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