Numerologists may have to be called in to explain the historic magnitude of the year 2010. After 60 years of doubling down on their spending, 2010 became the year governments from Greece to California hit the wall. (That Athens became the symbol of the democracies' compulsion to spend themselves into oblivion is an eeriness we'd rather not ponder.)

In the distant future, some U.S. historian in kindergarten today will write about Congressman David Obey's contribution to the splitting apart of American liberalism's assumptions...