Matt Welch on Spending Denialism in the Age of Obama

Several weeks before the slow-motion "fiscal cliff" negotiation ended in a giveaway-rich, tax-hiking, 154-page spending bill that senators had all of six minutes to glance at before approving by an 89-8 vote in the wee hours of January 1, President Barack Obama reportedly told House Speaker John Boehner flat out: "We don't have a spending problem."

Boehner, in relaying the quote to The Wall Street Journal three days after the House of Representatives grudgingly ratified the Senate plan, expressed astonishment at the president's words. But he shouldn't have. As Matt Welch explains in Reason's March issue, spending denialism—of the literal sort—has become a core progressive value in the age of Obama.