The lead editorial in the much-read Sunday New York Times yesterday, The Budget Illusion, cites last week's CBO projections of a cumulative deficit of $2.9 trillion to $3.4 trillion over the next 10 years "if, as Mr. Bush wishes, the tax cuts are extended beyond their scheduled expiration in 2010." It concludes: Mr. Bush’s tax cuts should largely be allowed to expire. Facing that truth is not a fiscal challenge, it’s a political one. Mr. Bush will not meet it. But a future president and Congress will have to. The Times' recommendation that Bush's first-term tax cuts largely be allowed to expire may be good policy, but its timing is confusing. We will be in a position to begin at last to enact policy along these lines:

• if the next President decides to spend capital on fiscal responsibility
• when the Bush tax cut expiration deadline bears down on Congress
• as the tax-cutting imperative in our political culture begins to fade (a process already underway, claims Mark Schmitt in Read My Lips: Raise Taxes)