This will come as a shock to those who believe the only significant news in recent weeks has been the Benghazi, IRS and AP/Fox News intimidation scandals, but there have been some significant developments on other issues. Consider the May 14 “Dear Colleague” letter by Republican Sens. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, Rand Paul of Kentucky, and John McCain and Jeff Flake of Arizona. One sentence in particular stands out: “We, therefore, are notifying you of our intention to object to the consideration of any legislation that fails to meet any of the following standards:”

» All new spending must be offset with cuts to lower-priority spending. The most egregious failure of recent Congresses and presidents has been failing to set priorities in the federal budget. As the five explain, “Congress authorizes billions of dollars in new spending every year to create new government programs or expand existing ones. Yet, few bills are passed to eliminate outdated, duplicative, unnecessary, inefficient, wasteful, or low-priority programs.”