FROM NICK GILLESPIE, A GREAT RANT ON DEBT AND SUBSIDIES. Excerpt:

Obama was never credible, even when he first took office and started yammering on about how “Tomorrow We Scrimp, But Tonight We Spend Like There’s No Tomorrow.” Bonus memory from January 2009: The great Wash Post headline, “Stimulus aside, Obama vows future budget restraint.”

If only. I like to look toward the future, but one thing that seems to have gone missing from even the recent past (much less prehistoric Bedrock) is the sense that, with apologies to Spider-man, with great debt comes great responsibility to pay it back. Or even any responsibility to pay it back. Jesus H. Christ, the whole point of flop sweat when you sign a housing contract or a car loan or a student loan is that you know you’re signing on for a potential world of hurt. The minute you stop thinking about that is the minute you start making really goddamned stupid decisions.

You get one bailout too many – that includes car companies and Wall Street banktards along with home buyers who stretched like Plastic Man to move into that dream house on an ancient Indian burial ground – and suddenly you start feeling really pissed that you have to pay for anything.

Which is no way to restart an economy.

Indeed.