The writer is chairman of the Nebraska Republican Party.

Feb. 24 was Mardi Gras, or "Fat Tuesday," the last hurrah of excess before a season of reflection. It is fitting, then, that on this same day President Barack Obama delivered his address to Congress -- an oratorical hurrah of excess that, if successful, would make Americans more dependent on the federal government than ever before.

Since taking office on Jan. 20, President Obama and the Democrats in Congress have been on an unprecedented spending spree, the speed of which is dizzying. At last count, the Democrats have enacted or proposed:

• The so-called stimulus package, signed into law by President Obama on Feb. 17, with a price tag of $1.1 trillion with interest. The bill contains "emergency" spending of $50 million for the National Endowment of the Arts and $300 million for plug-in and golf cart-like vehicles. Even if one assumes the Obama administration is correct that the legislation somehow will create 3 million jobs, that comes at a cost of $262,000 per job.

• A $410 billion omnibus appropriations bill, approved by the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives on Feb. 25, that includes some 9,000 earmarks for "critical" projects involving Maine lobsters, tattoo removal and the "Ted Kennedy Institute for the Senate."

• A $3.55 trillion federal budget proposed by the Obama administration for fiscal year 2010 that begins Oct. 1. The budget radically would expand the reach of the federal government. It proposes $634 billion in new taxes and $318 billion in tax increases, including new limits on charitable donations to nonprofit and religious institutions. Meanwhile, the annual budget deficits and national debt would reach unprecedented levels - obligations to be left to our children and grandchildren to pay.

If the sheer amount of the Democrats' proposed spending wasn't alarming enough, the proposed displacement of individual responsibility and private social service organizations by federal bureaucracies is even more concerning. At the end of the day, the Democratic plans, if installed, would make Americans dependent upon the federal government like never before.

Perhaps that is the Democrats' ultimate goal. But that is not the goal of the Republican Party.

Republicans, as Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal aptly put it, believe that the "strength of America is not found in our government. It is found in the compassionate hearts and enterprising spirit of our citizens." Democrats, on the other hand, now believe that the strength of America is our federal government and that the way to a better life is to increase our dependence on government.

And who said there is no difference between Democrats and Republicans?