I keep waiting for that moment when Barack Obama -- President Obama -- tells the American people that there is a price to be paid for the many proposals he has offered. That moment has yet to come.

Obama's inaugural speech did tell America that it is time to set aside childish things, that greatness must be earned, and Obama bristled at the notion that "the next generation must lower its sights." But as usual, he failed to tell voters anything they might not want to hear.

So began the "new era of responsibility." You can counter that most inaugural speeches don't say much. Fair enough. You also could say that the very fact that an African-American became this country's 44th president is moment enough. For the first time, some minority voters felt part of the American family on Inauguration Day. That in itself is moving.

Back to this new era of responsibility. About an hour after the inauguration, I went to the new whitehouse.gov website. Obama's five-point plan to restore fiscal discipline starts with items that already are history -- the bad way.

Reinstate PAYGO rules. Fine, except the new $825 billion stimulus package goes around pay-as-you-go rules. And while the PAYGO rules remain, they're so bendable that Congress bypassed PAYGO for the $810 billion bailout, the Alternative Minimum Tax tweak, the energy bill, the pork-fest farm bill and more.

Reverse tax cuts for the wealthy. Yes, Obama campaigned on a platform of ending Bush tax cuts for Americans earning more than $250,000, but now his economic team is talking about letting those tax cuts expire in 2010. Don't get me wrong. Obamaland is right to put off raising taxes during a recession. But why is a discarded pledge item No. 2? Continued...