Runaway federal spending has emerged as the chief issue on the minds of voters heading into the fall election season — and for good reason.

In 2000, the federal government spent $1.8 trillion while debt held by the public stood at $3.4 trillion. A mere decade later, the federal government is on pace to spend $3.7 trillion while publicly held debt is approaching $10 trillion.

There’s no blame game left to be played. President George W. Bush left office having presided over one of the largest expansions of federal spending in history.

The flames from Greece's debt crisis protests have cast new light on the perils of our own overspending and overborrowing. You know the litany. California is imploding. Public sector unions there, and across the country, are swallowing budgets. In California alone, pension costs have gone up 2,000% in a decade. At the national level, ObamaCare has done little to fix — and much to hurt — America's long-term entitlement mess. Already, the structural deficit has tripled since 2007.

One way to understand the divisions in the Republican Party is as a clash of regional philosophies. Northeastern conservatism is moderate, accepts the modern welfare state, and dislikes mixing religion with politics. Western conservatism is hawkish, hates government, and embraces individual freedom. Southern conservatism is populist, draws on evangelical Christianity, and plays upon racial resentments. The big drama of the GOP over the past several decades has been the Northeastern view giving way to the Southern one.

MAYBE TEA PARTIERS ARE HELPING -- THE OTHER PARTY.... Marc Ambinder ponders an interesting question today: "With the exception of Scott Brown's miraculous Senate race victory in Massachusetts -- and even there, one can question the premise -- has the Tea Party movement really done anything to help the Republican Party this cycle?"

As far as I can tell, not much. The trend started early on, in the special election in New York's 23rd congressional district, where Tea Party activism helped a Democrat win a seat that's been held by Republicans for about 150 years.

As they followed one another off the political cliff in voting for the health-care overhaul, Democratic senators and representatives comforted themselves with their own self-created myth that, although ObamaCare was horribly unpopular as a bill, it would prove to be quite fetching as a law. Furthermore, this transformation, this change they could believe in, would take place sooner rather than later — as voters would reward rather than punish them for passing ObamaCare in clear and open defiance of popular will.

For decades small business owners have been telling anyone who would listen that they need health-care reforms that lower costs. But President Obama and his allies in Congress pushed through a law that will dramatically raise health-care costs and increase the overall cost of doing business. What's more, the federal mandate requiring that nearly all U.S. residents carry health insurance by 2014 seriously threatens our basic constitutional rights and individual freedoms.

WASHINGTON -- Several months ago, a group of logistics officers at the Industrial College of the Armed Forces developed a national security strategy as a class exercise. Their No. 1 recommendation for maintaining U.S. global leadership was "restore fiscal responsibility."

This is not the culture war of the 1990s. It is not a fight over guns, gays or abortion. Those old battles have been eclipsed by a new struggle between two competing visions of the country's future. In one, America will continue to be an exceptional nation organized around the principles of free enterprise -- limited government, a reliance on entrepreneurship and rewards determined by market forces. In the other, America will move toward European-style statism grounded in expanding bureaucracies, a managed economy and large-scale income redistribution. These visions are not reconcilable.

For the first time since May, 2008, House Republicans have won a special election.

Republican Charles Djou topped Democrats Colleen Hanabusa and former Rep. Ed Case (D-HI) to succeed retired Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D-HI) in Congress. Before Djou’s victory, Democrats had won 11 consecutive special elections. The stretch included a win last Tuesday by Rep. Mark Critz (D-PA) to succeed the late-Rep. Jack Murtha (D-PA). Many political handicappers expected Republican Tim Burns to win that contest and viewed the race as a barometer for how the political winds may blow this fall.

Critics of Arizona's tough new immigration law, which makes illegal immigration a state crime, have called supporters of the bill "racist," "mean-spirited" and "un-American." Here's the newsflash: The measure is also good politics, not only in Arizona, but nationally.

Usually after a measure like this has passed, the news media respond with stories about how the measure will hurt the GOP among Latino voters. This time, not so much.