Consistency...

Winston Churchill called consistency "the hobgoblin of small minds". If that's the case, there's no problem of small minds in the governing party, the PAN. If it hadn't happened, it would be hard to imagine a scenario as absurd as that played out last week. Interior Minister Gomez Mont, whose father was a founder of the PAN, resigned from the party after the PAN's leadership endorsed running a joint gubernatorial candidate with the PRD.

Although Gomez Mont didn't say so, it appears that last fall he promised the PRI that the PAN would not forge electoral alliances with the PRD in exchange for the PRI's support of the budget.

To preserve any vestige of credibility with the PRI, Gomez Mont had to deliver his party or resign. He obviously couldn't do the former. Where is the President and what is his strategy?

Budgets and deficits

Mexico's public sector spends the equivalent of 22% of the country's GDP. The 2011 fiscal year budget proposed by President Obama is about 25% of US GDP.