WEEKLY EDITORIAL RECAP

TUESDAY

GOVERNMENT LOBBYING

Cities, counties, school districts and other government entities spent at least $3.2 million this year lobbying lawmakers in Carson City. ...

Spending taxpayer resources on largely private interactions with legislators is a breach of public trust. Local governments should limit their influence-peddling activities to public testimony and formal, written communications -- so you can see exactly what you're paying for.

WEDNESDAY

PAY AS YOU GO? HA!

The House of Representatives voted 265-166 last week for a Democratic "pay as you go" bill that would require automatic, across-the-board spending cuts should a year-end review show that new appropriations do not balance with revenues.

If you're waiting for a punch line and a rim shot, you've ridden this merry-go-round before, haven't you?

It sounds like a joke, given that Congress consistently underestimates the cost of every program it initiates, and in this manner has loaded us up with an extra half-trillion dollars of debt each year, an achievement it will doubtless outdo this year. And it is a joke, of course, though one which the Washingtonians manage to tell with a straight face, thanks to long practice. ...

FRIDAY

THE PROJECTS

"Housing projects" were the prime jewel of tax-and-spend American liberalism for 60 years.

As government now pretends it can run the auto industry, the banking industry, the stock markets and health care, let us stand in awe at the columns of dust arising from the wreckage of a policy that once presumed government could do a better job than the free market at "providing safe and sanitary housing for the poor."