deficit under the terms that bowles-simpson laid out unless you eliminate discretionary spending. everything we think of as being pretty important from education to basic science and research to transportation spending, to national parks to environmental protect, we'd essentially have to eliminate. i guess another way of thinking about this is -- and this bears on your reporting -- i think that there is oftentimes the impulse to suggest that if the two parties are disagreeing, then they're equally at fault and the truth lies somewhere in the middle. and an equivalence is presented, which is reinforces i think people's cynicism about