The Indiana Republican offers a strange definition of “fiscal discipline” in a defense of President Bush’s private accounts plan in USA Today:

The American people now see a very clear choice before them: The president’s bold vision for [Social Security] reform based on fiscal discipline and choice, and the Democrat vision for reform based on higher taxes. The cure for what ails Social Security is new ideas, not higher taxes.

Um, Mike? The President’s plan closes only about 30% of Social Security’s 75-year funding shortfall, moves the date that the Trust Fund is exhausted forward by 11 years, and — by Dick Cheney’s own admission — requires trillions of dollars in additional government borrowing. And that’s on top of the ten-year deficit of $2.5 trillion in his most recent budget, which also excludes military costs for Iraq and Afghanistan as well as a fix for the alternative minimum tax. By any reasonable standard, this is the opposite of “fiscal discipline.”