Go ahead and rip me a new one, I love to watch. TB, you can't get around the inevitable coincidence of the start of the deficit and the tax cut. You can't get a clearer correlation than that, oh empirical-minded engineering poobah of hard-boiled scientific method. And we also know now the tax cuts are NOT invested in more jobs, but are squandered in get-rich-quick schemes on the stock market. Business has no intention of "investing in more jobs", it's figured out alternatives to that.

I'll grant you the present deficit now owes much to Obama's plan to stop the recession by massive corporate welfare giveaways. But that came after the deficit, and after the crash. And I may be willing to concede that the stimulus and the bailout may not have been the right way to solve that problem. The jury is still out on that. But even if it is the dead wrong thing to do, at least it was part of a strategy to fix a real problem, not just a cynical move to plunder the middle class and the future for an unnecessary and unearned short term profit.

But what's done is done, and cannot be undone. The way to solve the problem now is shared sacrifice, across the board. I would propose an across the board cut in government expenditures and programs. The targeted cuts can come later, but we need something now, to show the nation we mean business, not just political theater the Republicans and their corporate allies can cynically exploit to stall and delay and squeeze even more blood out of the turnip. On top of the spending cut, I would impose a graduated tax increase, across the board, only providing exemptions to the lowest portion of the income range. Other, more targeted cuts would have to come later for specific programs and targeted taxation to encourage or discourage specific corporate and consumer behavior. But that would have to be negotiated politically, after we get people's attention.

I personally would be willing to accept a reduction in my benefits, but only if coupled with a comparable increase in taxes. After all, that would be a double whammy for me, since I pay taxes on my retirement benefits. But there is no way the nation will tolerate the war-profiteer mentality of the Right any longer.