On Ryan's points...

You have said this time and time again, I know... but it leads me to ask another question that has been asked a dozen times already:

WHAT WOULD YOU CUT, AND WHAT WOULD YOU KEEP?

You keep saying that entire departments and agencies need to be eliminated, but can't tell me which ones, or how you'll do it. There are those that advocate simply firing everyone that works for the Department of Education... fire every last mother's child of them... and put the responsibility for what that department was doing back into the hands of the individual States. Perhaps that is a course you'd follow?

I can tell you right now that doing that in a State like California, Illinois... hell, even Pennsylvania... would probably cause it to fall right into bankruptcy just by knowing that the funds that WERE coming from the Fed will now have to be collected and distributed at a State level. No State in the Union has an Education Department that is capable of picking up the slack should the Federal Department close its doors... there isn't the manpower, resources or infrastructure in place to do it and there hasn't been for nearly 30 years.

The closest thing to what you are describing has been proposed in the past by former Governor and Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson... but even his proposal that all welfare and medicare issues be turned over to the individual States would have taken 6 years. Is that TOO long a wait?

Look, AGAIN, I'm not saying you are wrong... its just that I'd love to see how far you'd go to reduce government. So, how far is it?