Everybody agrees the budget must be cut, but the actual efforts to do so are just political theater; inconsequential bickering about fringe social issues and trivial amounts. Rather than using a government shutdown as a point-of-no-return incentive to action, maybe an alternative line in the sand should be drawn.

Simply declare, a few months before budget negotiations start, that if there is no agreement by a certain date there will be an immediate default budget, an X percent reduction in Federal spending, across the board, to all programs. Everything. And to get the Republicans' attention, there will be a simultaneous X percent tax surcharge, across the board, no exceptions or exemptions. Everybody loses, everybody pays. X can be legislatively determined yearly, but I'm thinking 10 percent sounds about right.

Sure, everybody has heard the scalpel vs chainsaw argument, but piddling about details, especially leading to an expensive shutdown that serves no purpose and has no real consequences (so your new passport gets delayed and Yosemite shuts down), is just as unfair, inefficient and illogical as an across-the-board action. And the resulting compromise neither reduces the deficit nor serves the recipients of government programs. With a draconian default budget, both sides will lose so much (and the nation will, after all, get deficit relief) that it will be an incentive to negotiate for both Democrat and Republican.

Personally, I'm getting a bit tired of all this congressional bickering. The Democrats are spending the country into an abyss, and the Republicans really don't care what happens as long as their taxes are cut and NPR, abortions and unions suffer.