America’s Age of Austerity lasted approximately three minutes, give or take a nanosecond. Immediately after the Senate approved the bipartisan “Budget Control Act of 2011” Tuesday afternoon, President Obama hustled over to the Rose Garden — to crow about the renewed opportunity to make “key investments.” Yes, the pitched battle to force government to live within its means has preserved the failed stimulator-in-chief’s ability to keep spending like there’s no tomorrow. As the curtains closed on D.C.’s debt-ceiling theater, Obama wasted no time putting his new “investment” priorities on the table: higher taxes, more funding for endless unemployment benefits and a “national infrastructure bank.”

I don’t need to bet you a supersized bowl of peas that pushover Republicans will be ready to toss their Tea Party costumes under the bus and rejoin the spending parade faster than you can say “Fitch.”