"Hard choices"

Congressional Republicans have rediscovered their inner fiscal conservative and have come to budget-cutting with vigor not seen since President Clinton balanced our budget in the late 1990s. Of course, this budget balancing will require some "hard choices," like cutting working families off food stamps, cutting working families from child care assistance (that helps them continue to work), and $70 billion in new tax cuts

E.J. Dionne says it right, that asking Americans to make hard choices means admitting that you can't finance a war on tax cuts, can't finance homeland security on tax cuts, and can't pay for national disaster relief on tax cuts. In other words, ask the wealthy and the middle class to pay for what they're getting.

On the other hand, it's fun to reduce any bootstrap building programs to the poor, since they can't make political contributions (like oil companies) and are less likely to vote.

If we're finally ready for honesty in budgeting - paying a fair price - then sign me up. But stop kicking the poor while they're down.