Bruce Bartlett begs the GOP to acknowledge reality:
[S]pending and deficits are not going to be controlled by taking a meat-ax to the budget, as many of those in the Tea Party want to do. You can’t just enact across the board cuts in every program or abolish departments and agencies and expect their functions to completely disappear. ... The reality is that Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are where the real money is, and reducing outlays for these programs is very, very hard; not just for political reasons, but because they are highly complex programs and require changes in the law governing eligibility to reduce spending in the long run. Doing so in a way that can’t be gamed by beneficiaries or create massive unfairness is a major challenge.