Merely nibbling the margins

Under pressure from some of the new arrivals who at least seem to want to keep their promises to the Tea Party crowd, Republicans are proposing $100 billion in spending cuts over the President's original draft Fiscal 2011 budget (which, nearly five months into the fiscal year, Congress still... hasn't... finished...).

It's tempting to be encouraged by the sight of freshmen Congressmen pushing hard for deeper cuts (the GOP originally sought about $70 billion). That is, until one realizes this:

Even a $100 billion reduction only closes this year's deficit by about 8 percent! In other words, we'd still run 92% of the record-setting $1.5 trillion deficit projected for FY2011.

There's lots of rhetoric in Washington about 'putting our financial house in order." If a family proposed to continue racking up debt at 92% the rate they currently were, we wouldn't consider that a serious effort at financial discipline.

So why is Washington any different???

In other news, the International Monetary Fund is calling for an alternative to the dollar as a reserve currency. Something about losing faith in the stability of the dollar's value as an asset.

...not that this is a related development or anything... (*cough, cough*)