The 'New Red Menace'

Former Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels came up with the best description of the fiscal crisis the country faces during his speech at CPAC. He called it the “new red menace.” The red he’s talking about, of course, isn’t the communist menace we fought for over 40 years in the Cold War, but instead the ocean of red ink our national debt continues to accumlate as the federal government remains on a spending spree with no end in sight.

Most know that we’re past the “we can’t do this forever” stage of spending and into the “we can’t do this anymore” stage of fiscal difficulty. There is no more road down which the can can be kicked. Yet the budget submitted by the president to Congress today seems to be one which ignores the new reality.