Fairy Tales

("Jockeying Anew in Congress in Next Budget Fight Phase")

It is but one more assault on our intelligence. It is what Paul Krugman refers to as the "confidence fairy" in just another form. Are we really supposed to spend the next 3 months investing our energy and pinning our hopes on the 12 wise men who will lead us to a new, saner world?

When the ultimate power to decide lays not in the hands of this committee but rather in the votes of a Congress which have shown absolutely no ability to wrest control from the hands of the radical right, we can be certain that, at the end of the day, there will be no taxes (read my lips) to help fund this $1.2 trillion mandate. And the required cuts to military spending, when no resolution is agreed upon, will somehow be offset by other measures so that the weak, the poor and the unemployed will bear the brunt of our misguided decision to tighten our collective belts (read as "their" collective belts).

We know that this group of 12 will be filled with partisan picks and angry rhetoric. And when the fairy dust has settled, they will lead us not out of the wilderness, but right back to square one. The ugly truth is that it is time for us to grow up and stop believing in fairy tales. Sorry, Peter Pan.