He lost me at "you think the solution is taxing..."

That is not THE solution. Like anything else, it's PART of a solution. There is NO magic bullet. And at a 3:1 ratio of spending cuts to tax increases, well, that's better than Reagan got.

For all their screaming, I would have hoped that Boehner and company would have put in some kind of legal assurance that the spending cut actually HAPPEN, unlike what happened to Reagan and Bush Sr. (where they did NOT get the spending cuts they were promised).

The facts are that the old talking points do not apply in this case.

Higher taxes on the not-job-creators are bad? Tell that to Germany. THey have FAR higher taxes, FAR higher spending and THEY are the ones telling Greece what WILL and WON'T be acceptable in the future.

Canada and their higher taxes (and spending) are creating more jobs than we are with ONE TENTH the population.

Why?

Well, I don't have all the answers, but I would imagine that spending money on foreign wars that should not have been started (Iraq) or that have taken FAR too long (Afghanistan) is a good place to start cutting. Let's cut Michelle Bachmann's farm and medicare subsidies while we're at it since she claims to hate those programs so much.

I've said the before and I sound like a broken record. We no longer lead in very much. The tallest buildings, the fastest trains, the best health care.. None of that is here anymore. The best cars? Look overseas. Planes? Airbus is maintainging their lead over Boeing. Energy policy? don't make me laugh (or cry).