Let me finish tonight with a bright picture we all know so well.
You know, when you're in the city on a weekend - down near the art museum or the big downtown park and there's this guy in a Marcel Marceau costume who's doing mime. You know, pretending that he's pushing up against a wall. You must have seen that one - maybe too many times.
That's what the Republicans in the House are doing this week - engaging in performance art. Miming out there on the sidewalk - pretending - like Marcel Marceau - to be pushing up against a wall. All that's missing are the clown costumes, although everybody knows what they're watching here - performance art - street theatre - a joke.
The Republican bill that went to the floor today has no specifics - it just deals in an overall number. No mention of what's to be targeted. The "cap" proposal only cuts below 20 percent a decade from now and the balanced budget amendment to the Constitution takes a two-thirds vote in both Houses - which everyone watching knows isn't going to be the basis for any bi-partisan deal, isn't going to solve anything in other words.
And does anybody believe that the balanced budget amendment would do us any good even if it were a fact today? Would anybody agree, with the economy already weak, that it would be smart to cut federal spending by a trillion dollars now? To cut 25 percent of the GDP which we're spending now to 18 percent?
So I wonder what good all this street theater we're watching is going to accomplish, except waste one more week fiddling around - waiting for the fire to start.