Since when did the American Dream become the American Guarantee?

It's time for ordinary Americans to come out of the shadows and remind Washington every day in words and actions that we are a sovereign nation, not a sanctuary nation.

ACORN, you may recall, is the left-wing activist group with longtime ties to community organizer-turned-President Barack Obama. The nonprofit, which now takes in 40 percent of its revenues from American taxpayers after four decades on the public teat, has a history of engaging in voter fraud, corporate shakedowns, partisan bullying and pro-illegal immigration lobbying. The Democrats' stimulus proposals could make the group - and its lesser known but even more radical ideological allies - eligible for upward of $5 billion in new public cash.

Let there be no doubt: Democrats are the party with two ideas: borrow and spend. The only vigorous internal debate on the left revolves around two questions: How much and how much more?

Raising the traditional and early retirement ages will mean extending workers' taxable earning years, fueling economic growth and putting a dent in our unfunded-liabilities crisis by delaying payouts.

Washington continues to encourage ever more ill-considered lending in a misguided attempt to stave off needed market corrections. The currently proposed combination of a nationwide infrastructure spending orgy plus tax-cut bribes does nothing to remedy that.

Barack Obama and Jimmy Hoffa are like Tweedledum and Tweedledee, Lady Gaga and hype, the 'Jersey Shore' cast and hairspray: inseparable. The president can no more disown the Teamsters Union's leader than he can disown his own id.