On June 30, the Congressional Budget Office issued its long-term outlook, predicting that deficits would come down for the next few years as the need for counterrecession spending eases and revenues improve. But then, it warned, "unsustainable" red ink would flow again, creating debts not seen since World War II.

The very next day the House of Representatives passed a one-year budget resolution rather than the normal blueprint committing the government to a fiscal plan of at least five years.

For all the publicity that goes to earmarks and other spending gimmicks, this was a far worst dereliction of duty. And the cynicism of the maneuver just made it worse.

One of the casualties of this maneuver is the partnership that has developed between Kent Conrad of North Dakota, the chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, and Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, its ranking Republican.

In January, they were co-sponsors of the legislation to create a National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, whose recommendations for closing the budget gap would be guaranteed an up or down vote in Congress.

The commission legislation was defeated when seven Republican senators who had initially co-sponsored it defected on the roll call. At that point, President Obama stepped in and rescued the idea, creating the commission by executive order.

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