The $61 billion in House-approved budget cuts represent less than 2 percent of the budget, less than 4 percent of the deficit and less than 5 percent of discretionary spending.
Yet the Democrats resisting that amount in House-approved cuts say it will wreck the economy while leaving children unschooled, taking food from the mouths of the elderly, and casting disabled people into the streets.
Laughter is the only appropriate response to such predictions. In these absurd times, when both parties quibble over crumbs while the layer cake of debt rises higher and higher, laughter is a mark of fiscal seriousness.
How else should one greet a New York Times editorial that concedes the federal deficit, projected to be $1.6 trillion this year, is "too large for comfort" but calls $61 billion in cuts "ruinous"?
Don't feel much like laughing, though.
