The tax base is shrinking nationally. In the United States, the top 20 percent of earners pay 70 percent of all federal taxes. For many, there is no risk in supporting pricey utopian experiments in Washington. “The other half” pays. Certainly, this brand of governance offers little in the way of the celebrated “sacrifice” the president keeps going on about…

But if Americans have truly fallen in love with the idea of expansive federal government, so be it. Let’s all start chipping in to pay for the costs associated with Hope…

There is a way to find out just how much we value the idea. Would a proposal that forced every taxpayer to shell out the true cost of this legislation ever get out of committee — or any politician’s mouth, for that matter?