Ronald Reagan's budget director, David Stockman, was on NPR along with a few others and the discussion was about how to balance the budget. Stockman said that we need long term reform rather than attempts at quick fixes. He said payroll taxes should go back up and we should also raise income taxes. He said Reagan raised taxes in the beginning of his first term, during a recession, to deal with the deficit.

He also said that we need to make big spending cuts. However, none of the guests on the show aknowledged the following problem (typical of NPR). Income tax increases are always scheduled to come first and spending cuts are always scheduled for much (years?) later. So taxes get increased right away and the spending cuts never happen. We've been sucker punched many times before, have we learned our lesson yet? I hope so.