“What is required of us now,” said President Barack Obama in his inaugural speech, “is a new era of responsibility—a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation, and the world….” Shortly thereafter, he used the same phrase as the title of his 2010 budget, which Congress has passed with minor alterations. In these and other ways, the President has made it clear that responsibility is to be the theme of his administration, playing the same role in recruiting popular support that the theme of “change” did during his election campaign. This theme...