Budget directors are a different sort of Washington creature. Simply put, we like telling people what they don’t want to hear. And in Washington, one thing people never want to hear is “no.”

In contrast, House members, senators and presidents — everybody who gets elected — absolutely love telling people “yes.” In fact, they like it so much, they’ve borrowed $34,000,000,000,000 so they can keep doing it.

So, looking at that federal debt, here’s a question from a former budget director that no one wants to hear: When are taxes going up?

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t want them to. But I can do a little math, and I understand a little about how Washington works. And if we are ever going to address the deficit and the debt, taxes will need to go up.

Yes, that sounds like heresy from a conservative Republican. But the bottom line is that right now, voters just want to hear “yes” a lot more than they want to hear “no.” And until that changes — until voters change — lawmakers certainly won’t.

I remember sitting in the Oval Office with a high-ranking Republican going over President Trump’s proposed 2018 federal budget. He said some nice things about my fiscal conservatism, financial competency and good intentions — and then reminded the president that I wasn’t elected. “But........

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