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Karl Frisch talks to Keith Olbermann about Eric Cantor's latest attempt to emulate Scrooge.

And therein lies the cognitive dissonance that fails the GOP and their tea party extremists. It's easy to say that you're for "smaller government," but when push comes to shove, what does that mean in reality?

We can cut funding to the National Weather Service, and the Tsunami Warning System, but what do you tell Americans who face the devastation of losing everything in a natural disaster? How much more does it cost us to not act preventatively? Ask the people of the Gulf Coast.

We can cut funding for the Department of Education...but are you willing to fork over the money personally for your kid's education? No, I don't mean private school. I had to registered my two kids this week for school. In addition to getting their classroom assignments, I got a supply list from each teacher. Not just what my kids needed, but what the classroom needed: Kleenex boxes, hand sanitizers, lined paper, etc. And they asked for donations to keep the music program at my eldest's middle school. All in all, I forked over $800 before I bought a lunch box or backpack that my kid will personally use. Why? Because of funding cuts. And on top of that, there are already eight scheduled furlough days with the option of more to make up for budget shortfalls.

We can end our space program. And sure, in these days of austerity, $1400 toilet seats seem like a bad bargain. But how many jobs did that space program provide? Not just within NASA, but with all those companies making parts for space travel and all the industries that sprung up as a result of innovations. We have double digit unemployment in many areas, think what a federal investment towards a bold space program could do, if we mandated those jobs stay here in the US.

The truth is that there is much waste in our budget (can we look at how much money is wasted in no bid contracts to Halliburton/KBR/Xe, please?) that we could and should look at to make our government more efficient, but cutting out programs all over the place? Pennywise and pound foolish.

And in the richest country in the world, to say that we can't care for our own is absolutely outrageous.