John Taylor has a point

A lot of conservatives have groused about the budget deal that was struck at the end of last week to avert a shutdown.  John Taylor calls the deal a "game changer."   Here's why.  The net change between what the Administration proposed and was actually adopted the first (Taylor believes) in a series of downward reductions in federal spending.  There is a real decline in the level of federal discretionary spending from 2010 to 2011.    Obviously, the step is small but the actual direction of spending is down not up.  There are plenty of next steps.  Over the course of the last two administrations federal spending has rocketed ahead.   Now we have an actual decline.  

What comes next is not simply discretionary spending.  A good deal of the $2 trillion increase in spending over the last couple of years came in non-discretionary spending.  One could eliminate entirely the range of discretionary spending and still not solve the deficit - so that change in mentality for both discretionary and non-discretionary spending is critical.

I hope Taylor is correct.  It is not clear, with the President's remarks over the weekend, that all of Washington has gotten the point.  This is not a revenue problem, it is a spending problem.  While it might be great policy to change the tax system in the country, it would not be a good idea to try to increase the pie to cover the deficit.  The President seems to think this is a revenue problem.

The more pessimistic view comes from Michael Ramirez, one of the nation's best political cartoonists.  He drew us a picture of the budget pie which puts the discussions over the last couple of weeks in perspective.