PUBLIC MARKS with tag spending

For five years, Bush has initiated massive spending programs, obstinately refused to protect the borders and signed restrictions on political speech into law. His veto pen remains unopened and unused in its original shrink-wrapped case. Bush treats conservatives like the Democrats treat the blacks (which is to say, pretty badly).

It's time to write budgetary discipline into the Constitution. How big, how expensive and how fiscally generous to industries and local communities should America's national government be? The spending policies of the current administration have made this the central domestic public policy question, for government has substantially grown under the leadership of a political party that for many decades has claimed to be the party of smaller government.