Pragmatism Wins

Rather than get into Twitter fights with people, I'm just going to speak my piece here, in my own forum, on the deal reached tonight to raise the debt ceiling. It's been amusing watching the reactions. Some Democrats are stating what I have said on here previously: President Obama's ability to make a deal and take credit for it, plus the killing of Osama Bin Laden, puts Obama in position to win next year in a landslide. The GOP has nothing to run on, except maybe its own insanity, especially if Michelle Bachmann (god forbid) gets the nomination.

However, those on the far Left are absolutely apoplectic tonight, saying the president caved, the economy is ruined, and perhaps a primary challenger (Dennis Kucinich?) would bring the president back around to their way of thinking. Paul Krugman is shaking his head over this, and it was only yesterday that his column declared that moderation and pragmatism were doomed to failure, and that the only way to confront right-wing extremism was with left-wing extremism. In other words, fight what got us into this mess with more of the same. He's good at that. He still thinks that the only way to fix our economy when we're bloated with a $14 trillion debt that the world is starting to get nervous about is to double down on spending (and debt) and hope that things get better so that we can then confront things down the road. I've already stated my two retorts to that idea, but I'll just repeat them here: 1) What if things DON'T get better? 2) With his plan, down the road, we become Greece, and if you think this plan hurts, you should see what the Greeks are dealing with. Of course, Krugman, along with fellow Left-wingers such as Arianna Huffington and Katrina van den Heuvel, also like to stick their heads in the sand and proclaim that we don't even have a debt crisis. On the ABC "This Week" program today, Krugman even went so far as to say that the only "rational" people on this issue were progressives.

Here's what it came down to... the president's "grand bargain" was the best deal we could have gotten to start to work on the debt problems. It reflected many of the recommendations of the Simpson-Bowles deficit commission from last year, and balanced spending cuts with changes in the tax structure that were long overdue. We all know what happened there... Eric Cantor basically stabbed Speaker Boehner in the back. So we don't get the "grand bargain". It stinks, but there it is.

The president was basically left with three options: 1) try again to make a deal that would at least get some of what he wanted (a debt ceiling increase to last past the election, bipartisan support, minimal cuts to entitlements) and could pass both houses of Congress before Tuesday, 2) default, or 3) invoke a Constitutional crisis by using the 14th Amendment to raise the debt ceiling himself (because the GOP would take it to court immediately, and even worse, might start suggesting the "i-word"... impeachment). Tea Partiers wanted option #2. That is just ridiculous, and shows they don't understand the scope of what we are dealing with here. The far Left wanted option #3. Similarly ridiculous. Both #2 and #3 would have caused a downgrade of our credit rating, global fears about our country imploding, and worldwide economic ruin. #1 was the pragmatic choice, the only sensible choice, and that is what the president chose.

This morning on ABC, George Stephanopolous expressed the moderate/pragmatic position in what almost turned into a pleading argument with Krugman. As Krugman suggested time and again that Obama stick to his guns and demand tax increases and push something that was even a little bit to the Left's liking, Stephanopolous repeated, "He doesn't have the votes!" And that is what it comes down to. We saw with the dueling political theatre votes on the Boehner plan and the Reid plan this week that one party going it alone was not going to pass both houses. So to those of you on the Left, I say if you don't like what just happened here, TRY HARDER in 2012. A lot of these Tea Party types came into office last November because Democrats stayed home. And do not counter with far-Left Democratic candidates, because that just snaps us back to the Congress of 2009-2010, which didn't get the job done either, and only seemed to be good at an imposition of will that led to the reimposition of will being staged now by the far Right. ELECT MODERATES.

As it is, there is still the fear that this deal might not pass either. Senator Lindsey Graham suggested on ABC this morning that half of the House GOP caucus might oppose this because it doesn't have their precious Balanced Budget Amendment in it. If that is indeed true... well, first of all, I will refer you back to my earlier thoughts on those who just want default. Secondly, it puts the onus on Nancy Pelosi and the House Democrats to make up the votes needed to pass this, and if they don't, then some of the blame will rest on them for what follows. This cannot be where the Democrats pull what the Republicans did to Boehner during the grand bargain negotiations and stab their leader in the back. I think this deal will pass the Senate, but the next 24 hours may require some crossing of fingers while Pelosi and her associates decide how to proceed.

Now as to the deal itself, people are panicking about this so-called "Super Congress", a committee of 6 Democrats and 6 Republicans from both houses of Congress who are charged with the task of finding $1 trillion to cut in addition to the $1 trillion that will be cut immediately. If they fail to carry this out, or Congress fails to act on those suggestions by the end of the year, $1 trillion automatically gets cut from entitlements and defense. With something on the table that both sides would sooner die than see cut, this compels everyone to actually DO SOMETHING, whereas in the past, commissions like Simpson-Bowles released their reports, then were either ignored or failed to get the votes in Congress to act on recommendations. People are saying this is a threat to democracy. How is a committee, like so many committees we've had before but one with actual teeth, a threat to democracy? We already have House and Senate Finance committees that decide what goes into our budget before the full Congress votes on it. It's not like they're bringing in outside, unelected people, like we've seen in the past with health care and energy debates.

In summation, was this the best deal? No. Was it a good deal? Many will argue no. Was this the best deal that could be made, given how close we are to the cliff and that our only other options would send us over the cliff? Yes. Argue all you want that "the Republicans held us all hostage". In the end, they still won't get everything they wanted, and they'll gnash their teeth over that. So it ends up being a deal that extremists on both sides don't like. That's usually what you get when you take the pragmatic approach.

That is my final word on this issue... any questions or complaints, refer back to the above and read it again.

Where the Republican Party Went Wrong

When I was younger, I identified strongly with the Republican Party. I found them to be the party with the most common-sense. They were for balanced budgets, smaller government, and balancing a strong economy with a strong national defense. All of these things appealed to me. As time went on, I found myself disagreeing with their social stances, particularly the influence of the Christian Coalition.

By 2000, I had pretty much become a moderate, and hardened my stances as the years went on. I supported John McCain in the GOP primaries against George W. Bush because I felt McCain was more qualified, more pragmatic, and more sensible as president. However, when faced with the choice of Bush or Gore (and Kerry in 2004), I chose Bush both times. My defense of his presidency and why I finally gave up on him are well-chronicled in this blog and need no elaboration here. Suffice to say, I recognize that the Republicans chose to break with the idea of fiscal conservatism for one of guns and butter (or in this case, guns and prescription meds). Very reminiscent of LBJ, with similar disastrous results. In 2008, McCain finally got his chance, but voters had had enough of Republicans in the White House, and I guess I can't blame them.

I had hoped that my fellow Republicans could change their stripes and return to their roots following the election of President Obama. Instead, they turned into full-fledged copies of Democrats, at least in terms of being the opposition party that lives to oppose. Rush Limbaugh declared that he hoped Obama would fail, and then pretty much assumed the mantle of head of the party, as everyone (including the actual head of the RNC) went groveling to him any time he attacked them for stepping out of line. Furthermore, he declared that the Republicans were in the shape they were in BECAUSE they had nominated John McCain. In other words, the sign was posted outside the party headquarters proclaiming, "Moderates need not apply." The Tea Party was thought to be good in principle, with their beliefs in returning to fiscal conservatism and libertarian leanings... but it turned out they were small-l "libertarians" and not large-L "Libertarians", in that they believed in less government... when it suited their purposes. Being called a RINO for my views grew tiresome, and the tragic shooting of Rep. Giffords only made me more eager to see more compromise and civility and less rhetorical warfare.

Instead, we got this showdown over the debt ceiling, and this is where I finally gave up on the Republican Party. Needing to cut spending in order to get our fiscal house in order was certainly a necessary evil, and those who continue to stick their heads in the sand and say there is no debt crisis are just fooling themselves into thinking we'll never hit the level of Greece. The president's grand bargain was a gutsy but pragmatic move, inviting venom from the left wing of his own party, but recognizing the need for cuts and increases in revenue. But the GOP wants no part of it. Blame Grover Norquist, blame the Tea Party, but mostly the blame belongs to every single member of that party (especially the leadership) for deciding that ideological orthodoxy trumps everything. When John Boehner walked out of the talks and Eric Cantor declared that even TALKING to the very president whom they hoped would fail was a sign that they had compromised, I said enough was enough.

And now we get the final act... the Republicans, having found themselves on the wrong side of the argument by stonewalling the best possible solution, have decided that winning the argument is now more important than actually averting a default. After wasting a week with the pointless political maneuver that was the "cut, cap, and balance" bill, they have now decided to send a stopgap measure to the Senate, knowing that either the Senate will again vote it down or that President Obama will veto it. Either way, the GOP can then proclaim to the cameras that it was the Democrats who caused the default by stopping their plan. I fear I'm not making that bold of a prediction here, but... America, we're going to default. And the worst part is that as our economic ship goes down, the people steering it will be too busy blaming each other to get us into the lifeboats.

And why is all this happening? Some Tea Party-inspired move to defend free market capitalism from antagonistic freedom-robbing forces such as Obamacare? Hate to break it to all of you strict Constitutionalists (of which I am one): there is NOTHING in the Constitution about protecting free markets or capitalism, which was in its nascent stages when the Constitution was passed. Therefore, if the Supreme Court decides that the commerce clause allows Congress to mandate health insurance for everyone and allows the federal government to run health care, then precedent is established for nationalizing anything and everything. If Republicans truly believe that the federal government should do all it can to protect the free exercise of capitalism, then they should have worked to put such language in the Constitution when they were in power in the 1990s and 2000s. What did we get instead? The Defense Of Marriage Act, and talk of constitutional amendments to define marriage, ban flag-burning, and other parts of the Right's moral agenda.

The moral agenda has so taken over the Republican Party that we cannot trust the party to do otherwise when they are in power. Therefore, what are our GOP presidential candidates talking about when they debate? Not jobs, not managing our deficits... they want to keep talking about DOMA and constitutional amendments on marriage and whether the federal government should continue to have the power to decide that marriage is between a man or a woman. There is no reason to believe that their top priority would ever be anything but an agenda of government intervention in private lives and a rollback of private liberties, rather than an agenda of truly protecting freedom and liberty, not to mention creating a stable capitalist economy.

Suffice to say, I feel more Libertarian than Republican, and the truth is I have been for a long time. My only reason to identify as a Republican was to hope that I could try to turn things back in the right direction by throwing my support behind a common-sense GOP candidate in 2012. Instead, I don't see anyone who fits that description. Instead, we have Michelle Bachmann leading the polls in Iowa. If it was Election Day 2012 today and I had a choice between any of the declared Republican candidates and President Obama, I'd hold my nose and vote for Obama, because at least he is trying to solve our problems and has proven himself not to be a pure ideologue. The shoe is truly on the other foot when I would vote for Obama today for the same reasons I voted for Bush twice.

Therefore, as of today, I am declaring that I am no longer a member of the Republican Party. Don't get too excited over this, my liberal Democrat friends... I have no intention of joining your side. I'm part of a growing chorus of Americans who long for a pragmatic third way in this country. Conservatives used to claim that liberals treat politics as their religion, but it has become clear that the Right worships at the altar of ideology just as much as the Left does. Our elected representatives have truly reached the point where scoring rhetorical points is more important than keeping the country afloat. The consequences are truly tragic, and sadly, they are only beginning.

Choose Your Own Adventure

When my summer began, I had big travel plans for the whole summer. I wanted to go camping, and I have done that... and I will be doing it again soon. I wanted to see lots of friends I hadn't seen in a long time, and I have done that. The timing of things wasn't exactly as planned, however. I have made up a lot of the summer as it has gone along.

Think about it as being like those "Choose Your Own Adventure" books that were popular among people my age when we were kids. You chose which way you wanted the plot to go by choosing the next page you wanted to flip to. If you made it to the ending without getting killed or imprisoned for life, it was like you "won." Of course, once you figure out how to win something and the novelty wears off, a lot of us then started cheating, looking in advance to see which pages the happy endings were on, and then backtracking in order to figure out which pages led you there.

Anyway, my plans were for a grand road trip to Nashville to see a friend of mine who had recently moved there. I was excited about a long journey filled with many chances to take pictures and create some lifelong memories. The open road makes me happy... long drives are great for the soul. And so it was that I made my way south, heading first to North Carolina to stay over at my cousin's place. It was a little out of the way by comparison to the more direct Philly-to-Nashville route, but as I said, it's about the journey and what you see along the way. Well, on my way south (at about the Woodrow Wilson Bridge on the DC Beltway), I got a message from my friend in Nashville. She had strep.

Now a lesser adventurer might take this as the ruination of the entire journey, which was now no longer worth making. Not in my case. Having flipped through the book to an unfortunate ending, I backtracked and chose a new path. I continued on to North Carolina, formulating possible plans in my head as I went. My cousin, great guy that he is, let me know that I was welcome to stay for the weekend, and I accepted the offer. I kinda felt that I should put some extra miles on the car, however, and find some new sources of enlightenment. So last Friday, I headed for Myrtle Beach. My grandparents used to take me there every summer when I was a little kid. Now that was over 25 years ago, so my memories of that time are rather hazy, but I wanted to go look around and see what I remembered and what the place was like now.

The trip down to Myrtle Beach fit the theme of the trip. I had received directions that took me more or less the "back way" through southeastern North Carolina. The directions were more or less fine, but they failed to take into account that signs in North Carolina are CONFUSING. I took one turn from Route 131 so as to go around a construction zone, and then never saw another sign for 131. Or maybe I zoned out... that may have been the more likely scenario. Anyway, the end result was I didn't know where I was until I realize I was almost all the way back at I-95... 10 miles out of my way. Again, bad ending, turn around, reroute to elsewhere in the book, try again. Also, when the directions say "turn left to stay on 701", and you see a sign telling you that "business 701" is a left turn, that is also confusing. They also like to place signs saying prepare to turn left in front of other left turns. Needless to say it took me a little while longer than planned to reach Myrtle Beach.

My first stop once I got down to the beach was a place called Bowery. Now this is not like the Bowery in NYC, this is much more country, as in real country, as in the bar staff openly started mocking when the country station they were playing put a Taylor Swift song on. I ordered one of their famous half-pound burgers, and it came to me on a comically small bun... or maybe the bun was normal size and the burger was comically large. Either way, the contrast was interesting, and made me wonder if they do that just for the visual effect. Anyway, it was quite good. I then went to the boardwalk (didn't even remember Myrtle Beach having a boardwalk). I swear Ripley's has just bought out the damn place... I remember the Believe It or Not museum being there, but they've added so many side attractions that it goes on for blocks now.

After some beach time, I looked around some more, then went looking for some things I remembered from my childhood. The hotel we used to stay in was gone, the old pottery place my grandparents always stopped at had morphed into an outlet mall, then became a dead outlet mall. The Myrtle Square Mall, with its iconic clock in the atrium area, had long been demolished. I remembered vividly how there were 60 lights circling the atrium, and each one would turn off at every second, and lights illuminating the hour and minute would turn on to show the time. I thought it was the coolest thing ever when I was a kid. Obviously, a lot changes in 25 years.

One of the great things I noticed from driving around the Carolinas for the weekend was how much better the drivers are. I pretty much knew that if I got buzzed by some moron switching lanes without signaling, he was going to have a New York, New Jersey, or Pennsylvania license plate, and they were few and far between. I also was continuously told that I lucked out in terms of weather. It was in the mid-80s and noticeably lacking in humidity for most of the time. That apparently NEVER happens in July in the Carolinas. As such, I got to enjoy the outdoors much more than I had planned, and as I am Irish, I did my best to stay properly protected. However, I often get reminded that I pretty much have to apply sunscreen with all the care of someone who details your car. It's not unusual for me to end a day in the sun with a stripe or streak of red somewhere that I thought I got... most notably along my hairline.

After a great weekend in North Carolina, I started to slowly head north. After all, I had not planned to return to Philly until Tuesday night; may as well use the time wisely. I spent Monday night in Richmond visiting an old friend... she showed me a lot of nice neighborhoods and business districts within walking range. The parts I saw were certainly nice enough. Tuesday was spent continuing to crawl north through Virginia until I reached Hagerstown, Maryland for dinner with another old friend, followed by the last leg of the journey back to Philadelphia. As I got off I-95 and headed over the Platt Bridge to my apartment complex, "Take the Long Way Home" by Supertramp fittingly came on the radio. Perfect end to a perfect trip.

The moral of the story is sometimes you just have to take what life gives you. Yeah, the whole lemons-lemonade thing. I'd love to visit Nashville someday soon, but what I got instead was a terrific lesson in letting instinct and a love for adventure take the wheel once in a while. And if the adventure you choose doesn't end the way you want it to, try again.

If Rock is Dead, Radio Killed It

I'll never forget when the owner of a station I worked for back in the day (who shall remain nameless because I'm sure he would love to sue me for libel) wrote a piece for the company newsletter declaring that the Alternative rock format was dying. This was in 2004, and he had just flipped the sister station of the one I worked for to Pop. Never mind that things were just fine at the station I worked for. People like to declare Rock formats and Rock music dead; it's almost become a cottage industry in itself. Well, an unfortunate development this week may go a long way toward starting a new debate over whether people want to listen to new rock music on the radio anymore.

Emmis Communications, yet another radio company that is drowning in debt, unloaded Alt-Rock stations WRXP in New York and WKQX in Chicago to a company headed by former Clear Channel exec Randy Michaels. Michaels promptly announced that the rock formats (the only new rock stations in NYC and Chicago) would be dumped and all the DJs fired, replaced by FM News formats. Tomorrow is the final day for both stations; in a rare move, the DJs are actually getting a chance to say goodbye to their loyal listeners.

Well, we know that loyalty of an audience doesn't mean much in this post-consolidation world of radio, but what I'm more concerned about is what is and what is NOT being offered on radio in 2 of the 3 largest radio markets in this country. As of Friday, there will be ONE commercial rock station in both cities, a classic rock station. NYC still has Fordham University's iconic WFUV, and it will be interesting to see if their microscopic audience rises after these flips. Considering that rock music is largely ignored by the rest of the new music radio landscape, this pretty much shuts the door on an entire genre of music. Commence the discussions of whether or not Rock is dead.

I have stated here previously that I have no problem with radio execs wanting to put News/Talk formats on the FM dial. My concern has been about what would be removed in order to make room for such stations. Ironically, in New York and Chicago, it is the very genre of music that launched the FM band to profitability in the 1970s. It's quite unimaginable to think that rock artists and bands constantly talk about what a dream it is to play Madison Square Garden, the "world's most famous arena", and yet for many of these bands, if they succeed and make it to MSG, they'll be playing in a city where THEIR MUSIC DOESN'T GET PLAYED ON THE RADIO. Way to help make the medium irrelevant, Randy Michaels.

I live in Philadelphia, where we have a wealth of rock-formatted stations to choose from. I have an Alt-Rock station, two Rock stations that play the classics along with new stuff, and WXPN, which plays the obscure and the forgotten. Philly, well-known for being a soul/R&B town, is also a huge supporter of rock. It is unfathomable that WMMR could go the way of the dinosaur, although there was a time in the 2000s when WYSP was a FM talker and there was no Alt-Rock station (ya know, back when my former boss was saying the format was dead).

Now I know that NYC and Philadelphia are two totally different cities (believe me, as a Mets fan, I am reminded of this almost daily), but rock music is universal, and not even the different cosmopolitan dynamic that is New York City should filter out tastes in certain types of music. I have a hard time believing that as you drive north on the New Jersey Turnpike and cross that imaginary line that separates South Jersey from North Jersey, you suddenly go from having a large populace raised on Springsteen and Bon Jovi that appreciates new rock music to having nobody with an interest in rock. And don't even tell me it's the hipster factor (as in the young rock audience only likes obscure stuff), because there are as many hipsters in Philly as there are in NYC (maybe more), and clearly, it hasn't diminished the rock audience. Similarly, I have a hard time believing that the city that gave us Styx and Survivor and REO Speedwagon and Smashing Pumpkins and... well, CHICAGO... has no interest in giving a place to the next great band to come from their City of Broad Shoulders.

All right, these stations were not exactly blowing people away in the ratings, and perhaps that gives Michaels an excuse to blow them up. In Q101's target demographic (18-34), they are in 9th place. Although their total weekly audience is an impressive 1.1 million, they sit buried in 20th place in the overall ratings with a 1.9 share. WRXP sits in a slightly more respectable 18th place overall, with a 2.6 share. But in these days where radio is (dismally) trying to sell themselves with the new HD technology to promote all of the different niches that are covered by local radio signals today, how can the industry tell its potential audience, "But we don't do ROCK"?

I am well aware that rock is alive and well in large chunks of the country, particularly those where the populace doesn't mind being force-fed the crap that passes for the Active Rock format today. At least those cities are still being properly served, and let's hope that continues. But new rock music has been yanked off the radio in 2 of the 3 largest cities in America, and if nobody steps up to replace these two stations, then radio is once again failing to deliver what its audience wants. Killing rock is a microcosm of how radio as an industry is killing itself.

Ask an Ideologue... or Better Yet, Don't

I thought it might be best to really get down to the nitty-gritty of our current political debate over increasing the national debt ceiling. So in order to this, I present to you this completely-fictional-but-rooted-somewhat-in-truth series of Q&A's between myself and a left-wing ideologue, a right-wing ideologue, and a normal everyday American.

Me: Thank you for joining me, Mr. Left-Wing Ideologue. As you know, we now have a national debt of over $14 trillion, which may soon affect our ability to borrow money and our overall economic standing. What do you want to see done to reduce our national debt?

Left-Wing Ideologue: Pull our troops out of Iraq, Libya, and Afghanistan NOW!!! Those wars cost $4 trillion and hundreds of thousands of innocent lives!

Me: Well, first of all, I'm with you on Libya. We never should have gotten involved in that. In fact, if you want to talk about defense measures that really cost us too much, why the hell do we still need NATO? Read George Will's recent piece on that. But as far as pulling out of Iraq, WE ARE. And this will be done in 6 months. Speeding it up doesn't help at all. Ditto Afghanistan. We already know that we're going to stay after the president's recent speech, but even if we were to pull out, it would take a while, and... oh yeah, it wouldn't unspend the $4 trillion we have spent on those conflicts. So what's your next idea?

LWI: First of all, George Will's a conservative, and therefore he's an idiot, so I won't be reading that column. And the point of those wars is we spent $4 trillion which could have been spent on other things, and it's all George W. Bush's fault!

Me: So what you're saying is you would have rather racked up $4 trillion in debt on other things. Debt is debt, regardless of what the money was spent on. Oh, and while you were blaming President Bush, our debt just went up another $25 million. So what do you actually want to see done to reduce the debt?

LWI: Tax the rich! Get rid of the Bush tax cuts... again, it's HIS fault that we're in this mess!

Me: And the debt just went up another $25 million... but I do think we should close tax loopholes and we should have revoked the Bush tax cuts on everyone last year. But it will take more than just that, so what spending would you like to see cut?

LWI: NONE! And you want taxes to go up on the shrinking middle class AND their entitlement programs cut? What kind of heartless, evil, Republican scum are you? If anything, we're not spending ENOUGH! We need another stimulus! The president has sold us out by proposing trillions in cuts!

Me: Okay, let me get this straight... you just want to tax and spend some more, and that will solve our $14 trillion national debt?

LWI: Well, nobody cares about the national debt anyway. Paul Krugman told me that. He's got a Nobel Prize in economics so he's never wrong.

Me: Uh, yeah... thank you, Mr. Left-Wing Ideologue. I am now joined by Mr. Right-Wing Ideologue. What is the first thing you would like to see done to fix the national debt?

Right-Wing Ideologue: Well, first of all, I just want to say your previous guest is a Socialist, Communist, Marxist pig of the lowest order. It's his boy Obama that is to blame for our large national debt.

Me: And as I told him, our national debt just went up another $25 million while you played the blame game. So what do you actually want to do about the debt?

RWI: CUT, CUT, CUT!!! Paul Ryan is the man! We need to approve his blueprint, cut $6 trillion from the federal budget, and that will get us going in the right direction.

Me: Well, he means well, but there is no way we can cut that deeply. The president is offering $4 trillion in cuts, and that should suffice, but raising revenues would also get the job done faster. So what changes in tax policy are you looking to make?

RWI: NONE! We cannot raise taxes at all! If anything, we should cut taxes even farther. Americans pay too much in taxes!

Me: Taxes are at their lowest level since 1950, and we're not really looking to raise taxes so much as close tax loopholes so that all these companies like GE actually PAY taxes like they are supposed to. So what do you say to that?

RWI: First of all, you, sir, are not a real Republican. Secondly, I, um... I signed that pledge to Grover Norquist not to raise any taxes ever, no matter how badly we need to, and technically... that's a tax increase... so, yeah, I'm stuck. Sorry.

Me: Thank you for your time, and for having absolutely no balls. Lastly, I turn to Mr. Regular American. What would you like to see done about our national debt?

Regular American: SOMETHING! ANYTHING! Approve the President's deal, he's giving Republicans exactly what they want on the spending side. Just take this as a victory and move on... ya know, to working on something that might actually get me a JOB!

Me: So you don't mind that your taxes may go up?

Regular American: I've learned to tighten my belt, why can't the government? I'll make do, but they're not going to get ANY taxes from me if I don't have a JOB. So yeah, take away those loopholes and tax shelters, and make it so some company will realize it costs them less to give ME a job than to outsource it.

Me: That's the first sensible thing I've heard all day...