That stung.

Still, the "Sponsor" add is brilliant in the way that brings home the fact that our goverment has been borrowing huge sums to fund consumption, rather than investment, and that after having paid out a fortune in servicing debt, we don't have anything tangible to show for it, big-picture wise. While you can point to projects here and there, it's hard to say that the nation as a whole has benefited from the spending priorities of goverment.

I'd cringe every second, but I'd love to see it made.

1) Increase taxes, and

2) Cut spending.

You have to do both, cause just cutting spending won't come anywhere close.

Let me know how that works for you, Congressman Irrelevant. While there are people who understand what needs to be done, and are willing to suffer through it, if that were the majority opinion, we wouldn't be in the mess we're in right now.

You could make the point that this is what leadership is all about, but representative democracy has evolved a very efficient method of taking down "leaders" who want to lead people where they'd rather not go.

So I'm going to suggest a new step 1:

1) Convince people that there is no such thing as a free lunch, and that this is a pay me now or pay me everything you have later situation.

Of course, the 500 billion spending gorilla has been the Iraq war. Indebting our country to a nation that poses a longterm threat to our national interest to finish off an already emasculated tin pot who no longer even possessed the strength to threaten his neighbors has been the greatest blunder of an ignomious administration.