I say bring it. The '95 shutdown didn't kill us. It wasn't very popular, but I think the public is more open to the idea now. And the Repubs have done a much better job of framing things this time around - the Dems are viewed as being obstructionists. (Well, by a plurality, at least.)
How to tame the budget beast? I've a few ideas, but no one is going to like them all.
It probably is time to pull out of Afghanistan and Iraq. Iraq because the job is as done as we're going to get it with the current leadership, and Afghanistan because it seems like the only way to 'win' there would be to kill everyone.
And we probably shouldn't have started with Libya. Knocking off Ghadafi is something I can get behind, but we're not even really doing that. It's a mess of a mission and we shouldn't have started unless we knew exactly what our goals were.
So anyway, I'd pull the plug on all three of those extended ops. I'd home port one carrier group on each coast (cheaper that way) and put two in the Pacific, one in the Red Sea and one in the Med. I'd cut construction on the new carrier class. I'd actually buy more fighters since we seem committed to going back to the 'air power over all' mentality again and I'd rather have more airframes with fewer mission hours than the reverse. Maintenance gets costly and stress and mistakes kill.
Domestically, I'd tell everyone 35 and under that they can forget about ever seeing a dime of their Social Security. We'll cover everyone above that, because it's not their fault they got lied to - beyond the fact that they probably voted for the liars, that is. Yes, that does mean that my generation and those behind me will likely experience a stagnant or even declining standard of living compared to the Boomers, but someone has to bite the bullet and We're The Ones We've Been Waiting For. If you must have your cross-generational conflict, feel free to snub your elders when they get shunted off into ObamaCare group nursing homes or whatever.
Of course, having proposed this, I'd get labeled a monster. If I managed to get it passed into law, I'd probably get shot. We're in the mess we're in because we don't want to do what needs to be done. I don't see that changing just yet, unfortunately.
But hey, turn off the lights in DC for a few days - maybe people will get serious.
PS: If you have 10 minutes to spare, this is worth watching if you've ever wondered what we'd get if we actually decided to eat the rich.
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