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.

Assessing the "TARP tax"

David Stockman, head of the Office of Management and Budget during the Reagan Administration, has this to say about the 0.15% "financial crisis responsibility fee" proposed by President Obama.

"Not surprisingly, the bankers are already whining, even though the tax would amount to a financial pinprick -- a levy of only 0.15% on the debts (other than deposits) of the big financial conglomerates. Their objections are evidence that the administration is on the right track.

Make no mistake, the banking system has become an agent of destruction for the gross domestic product and of impoverishment for the middle class. To be sure, it was lured into these unsavory missions by a truly insane monetary policy..."

See his whole argument on the Wednesday, January 20, op-ed page of the New York Times.