When George W. Bush was first elected, 75% of Americans polled believed that balancing the budget was more important than cutting taxes. Three quarters of the country was not on board with the Bush tax cut agenda.

It. Did. Not. Matter.

Now look.

Food for thought.

... and they can shed their existing obligations -- including the union contracts -- and reorganize as new companies with no legacy labor costs ... would they then be able to compete with the foreign company labor costs, and would that make them competitive again with the Southern state factories?

If so, the southern Senators could win this battle, but end up losing the war.

In the long run, though, it's hard to imagine that today's battlefield will still be around tomorrow. This is big, no? The whole map for the whole came could get totally redrawn, this time around. Maybe what we need to do is provide national health insurance for every citizen and adequate national retirement for every old person, and then let all our companies in every industry shed those costs and compete on that basis -- paying for skills and work today, not paying to support yesterday's workforce. It might allow for a level playing field and a more rational outcome.

"My plan has been to stay at home with my children, while keeping sharp by organizing charitable events in my basement, until Philadelphia Eagles, Free-Safety, Brian Dawkins retires; at which point I will make a phone call or two and "opt in" to a multi-year contract thus assuming my rightful place amongst the Eagles Secondary."

Okay, Cookie Monster, but you gotta play special teams or it's no deal.

Cutting payroll taxes absolutely would work if you did it fast enough. If you roll back Social Security withholding temporarily, you'll put dollars into peoples' very next paycheck. Seven percent unemployment means 93 percent of the workforce has jobs, and they do need money, and if they have it they will spend it. Bush's cheap line about "letting you keep your money" would become a truth if we did it by reducing Social Security withholding in times when a fiscal stimulus was called for. And it would be quick. Quick and effective. People would spend that cash.

Now as for the political game -- let's do this: Roll back the rate by a percent, but raise the ceiling. Not quite enough to balance -- leave it a net stimulus. But for balance, raise the capital gains tax rate. No present pain for that -- who the fluc has any capital gains? -- but it would recapture the money in the future when the economy comes back.

Come on. Where's your audacity, you bunch of old ladies? (And I mean "old ladies" in the nicest possible way.)

People aren't distinguishing here between the principles that make for success in a micro life -- my life, your life, anyone's household budget -- and the macroeconomic problem the country currently faces. The country has a liquidity crisis and a collapsing housing economy. Sure, one person screws up and gets in too deep and gets foreclosed, okay, too bad for that person. Millions of people get foreclosed -- and this is because of big, economy-wide forces -- and we're looking at a big national problem that has to be addressed. If you paid your mortgage on time every month and still can pay it, you're still hurt if there are four empty foreclosed houses on your block. You're hurt if the property values throughout your town are dragged down by all those vacant units.

We have a failure of the system to work now, not a failure of individuals to live right. We have to reboot the whole process. It's like a busted play in football. You stop, you reset, you start again. We need to stop and reset.

Same with the deficit spending. In ordinary times, it would be a bad idea. But right now we have a threat of a deflationary spiral. Printing money to run the government and pumping those dollars out into the economy is exactly what we need right now.

It's going to be hard for people to grasp. But this is not one household budget. It's the entire economy. The rules are not the same.