Cynical Nation

Conventional wisdom holds that Hurricane Katrina was a watershed event, clearly delineating the moment at which the era of big government being over was, officially, over.

This may be wishful thinking, but there's a chance the conventional wisdom could be wrong. The past week or so has seen something of a groundswell movement against runaway government discretionary spending. Citizens in Montana and Alaska have petitioned their local governments to return a portion of their federal largesse so that it might be redirected to the Gulf states, where it could actually do some good. Congressional pork cops like Jeff Flake in the House and John McCain in the Senate are getting more and more exposure. Best of all, the blogosphere is all over it. With the power of the internet, citizen oversight of federal budget line items is possible in a way it never was before.

With a little luck and a lot of hard work, Katrina could become a different kind of watershed. It could become the point at which we learned government resources are limited, and must be spent wisely. It could, in short, usher in the rebirth of fiscal conservatism. Surely that is a goal towards which we can all, left right and center, work toward together.