You know something I’m sick of? The media hailing tax-hikes as “courageous”. It takes precisely zero political courage to raise taxes. Most of the taxes are paid by a small minority of people – at the federal level, half of Americans don’t pay any taxes at all. So raising taxes doesn’t take any courage beyond pandering.

On the other hand, cutting spending takes tremendous courage — as demonstrated by the tremendous dearth of it. Every special interest wants its money. Every program has its vocal defenders. And spending programs are judged not by their records but by their intentions. Cutting useless anti-poverty programs “hurts the poor”; cutting ineffective anti-drug programs “puts kids on drugs”.

And real courage would be the media throwing away the Democratic (or in this case, pseudo-Republican) Party talking points and having opinions of their own