Here's the problem with your proposals ...

They don't go far enough.

Any proposal that attempts to tackle the deficit without dealing with entitlements is simply playing around the edges. That's why Paul Ryan is a rising star, his Road Map for America does just that. Like it or not, at least he has the stones to address SSI, Medicaid, Medicare and the like.

Look, I'm fine with a 12% reduction in military spending for a trade in a 12% reduction in discretionary spending, etc. However, we are now borrowing 40 cents out of every dollar we spend. Our overall debt to GDP ratio is hovering at 80%. This isn't the time for half measures. Entire agencies and programs need to be eliminated. And yet last night the president proposed spending another trillion dollars in order to do the "green jobs" and infrastructure improvements he promised to do with the first trillion (well, $787 billion, but what's a couple hundred billion between friends?). It's madness, plain and simple.

By the way, does anyone notice that when he speaks of ending tax cuts or reducing government (such as he defines a reduction) he refers to that as "spending", yet when he proposes spending he refers to that as investments?

With straight face he told us that repealing his mammoth new health care bill would add to the deficit, and in short that was his fiscal message - we have to spend money in order to save it. Who takes that seriously? It's laughable. It's not the thoughts of a serious man, or at least not an honest one. In addition, every "positive" aspect of achievement he used as an example in that speech was prefaced with a reference to a government loan, program or agency that made that achievement possible. He even reached back to the 50's to make this case for goodness sake.

Particularly maddening to me was that Sputnik reference. Had he tortured that metaphor any further he'd be in front of a court at the Hauge. The primary "leg up" China (serving as the USSR in this model) has is they are debtors (their Sputnik craft), while we are stuck on earth, as debtees. Yet his answer to regaining our footing is to increase that debt. That's like saying to win the space race we have to borrow money from the Soviets and use it to build a faster car. A REAL Sputnik moment would be proposing to eliminate the deficit in 2 years, that's putting a man on the moon. Such a "moment" requires bold commitments never before imagined, articulated by a president willing to take risks and address tough choices. And what we got was a story about two brothers whom converted their roofing business into a solar power panel company. WOW, that ought to send chills down the spine of Beijing.

I just can't take him seriously anymore. He looks me in the eye and says the only way to get spending under control is to increase spending. As I said, it's madness, a sham, a snake oil pitch. I know what he's going to say before he says it, no matter the flowery prose it's couched within.Mr. Obama wants to raise taxes and spend more. Always has, always will. He'll play around the margins so he can use the words "cut spending" in a speech, but in that same speech he'll propose to increase "investments" ten fold over what the cuts represent, all while telling you the increased spending will reduce the deficit. And why? Because the man, TO HIS CORE, holds the fundamental belief that man is best served by unleashing the power of government rather then the power of the individual.

My message to the GOP or the Bund is yes, fine, go ahead and present your Road Map, your alternatives, etc, etc. But your number 1 message needs to be that the best and surest way to create jobs and reduce the deficit is to defeat Barack Obama in 2012. There will not be change in America until we change presidents, so make that simple case and make it often - this president's agenda will bakrupt us. Done, end of message. The American people get that, they understand it, and what's more, they'll side with you. Taking the House was a critical first step in slowing his plans while we catch our breath. But he must be defeated or we go bankrupt, that's the message. Until that all our plans of specificty, clever arguments, and bright suggestions are academic. Until then, to borrow the presidents analogy, we are simply sucking on the solar fumes of a Soy Sauce Sputnik.