Consider. To bring the budget even close to balance in half a decade means cutting projected spending for Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security. But any changes here have to be agreed to by Harry Reid's Senate, and then by Barack Obama, who has a veto that the House Republicans have not a prayer of overriding.
As for cutting defense, if House Republicans have the kidney for that, they will have to overcome resistance from their own neocons, hawks and lobbyists for the military-industrial complex who are former Republican members of Congress.
Will farm-belt Republicans go along with cuts in agricultural subsidies? Will bricks-and-mortar boys go along with cuts in a federal highway program that is the legacy of GOP Rep. Bud Shuster of Pennsylvania?
And when it comes to cutting social programs -- welfare, food stamps, the earned income tax credit, unemployment insurance, Pell grants, housing subsidies -- the party of Nancy Pelosi and Reid, unreconciled to its repudiation, with the aid of the mainstream media, will paint the GOP as the hard right with hearts of titanium who deny the necessities of life to the neediest while defending tax cuts for millionaires.
Can the party stand the heat, or will it get out of the kitchen?
