Dispatch from the Philadelphia Airport

Apparantly at the last Southwest gate in the country that hasn't put in those neat laptop desks...

Political pundits across the spectrum agree that yesterday's election results confirm whatever it is they were arguing before the election. Republicans point to comfortable wins in New Jersey and Virginia. Democrats trumpet the NY-23 Congressional special election. Clearly, the electorate and political mood of the country has changed since November 2008. It is less trusting of government intervention, and less willing to support massive public spending as a solution to every problem.

But November 2010 is as far in the future as November 2008 is in the past. Advocates for free markets and smaller government need not only to press their case, but hold politicians who won on that platform accountable.

Manchester's budget next year should be fascinating. The Queen City easily approved the Spending Cap and a Mayor who campaigned for it, along with 13 Democratic Aldermen who largely opposed the Cap, and a Cap supporting Republican in the traditional Democratic stronghold of Ward 10. And the Cap doesn't take effect until after next year's budget season, so the Board has one budget left without having to constrain its spending to the rate of inflation, but with a new Mayor who ran on a platform of holding taxes and spending down. This should be interesting.