By 2050, our national debt will top $58 trillion in today’s dollars.

◼ The Spending Cliff - Michael Tanner/National Review

Republicans claim that, having disposed of the tax issue, they will now devote all their attention to securing spending reductions as part of the continuing-resolution and debt-ceiling negotiations to come. But President Obama is already laying the political groundwork for this debate, warning that Republicans will risk throwing the country into default over the debt ceiling in order to cut Social Security and Medicare. Will the GOP have the courage to insist on making the deep and painful cuts that will be required to restore us to fiscal sanity?