THE EXAMINER: “Why can’t Washington politicians level with the American people, particularly when they are about to raise our taxes? That question is posed regularly on this page and it is addressed as directly and as often to Republicans as to Democrats. When the Democrats won a resounding victory last November in great part because they promised to clean up the corruption in the nation’s capital, we hoped there would be fewer occasions to justify repeating the question. If hope is the father of optimism, then the Democrats in charge of Congress are about to inspire a lot of pessimism.”

UPDATE: A challenge to politicians to put up or shut up.