Matt Miller had another fine column in the Washington Post yesterday, of which several paragraphs are worthy of our attention:

Remember that great scene in the 1980 film classic, "The Shining," when the wife comes upon the typewriter of the Jack Nicholson character, who's supposed to have been working night and day for months on his novel? To her horror, she finds thousands of pages on which Jack has typed, "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy," formatted in countless, crazy ways. Suddenly his suspected madness becomes all too frighteningly real. Well, debt limit mania has driven me to a similar frenzied state. If my wife came across my manuscript it would read, "The House Republican budget adds $6 trillion to the debt in the next decade yet the GOP is balking at raising the debt limit. The House Republican budget adds $6 trillion to the debt in the next decade yet the GOP is balking at raising the debt limit."... ...It's amazing how some memes, once established as conventional wisdom, are almost impossible to dislodge, however at odds they are with the facts. Griping about this to a Prominent Media Figure the other day, I suggested that maybe if I set myself on fire in Times Square while spouting the truth about Republican debt, the truth would break through. "Maybe," he said. "But then you'd be seen as the radical." The classic definition of chutzpah was a kid who kills his parents and then asks for the mercy of the court because he's an orphan. The new definition of chutzpah is Republicans who vote for the Ryan plan that adds trillions in debt and who then say the debt limit goes up only over their dead bodies!

That's $600 billion of debt every year. It would increase the current debt limit, about which Republicans are howling, by about half again the current amount. And why? So the highest tax rate on the rich can be lowered from 35% to 25%.

So here these people stand caterwauling about the debt ceiling while voting en masse last Friday for a budget (Ryan's) that would take the national debt to galaxies heretofore unseen.

I do not understand how people like Ryan and Eric Cantor can get out of bed in the morning and say the things they say.

I do not understand how Democrats can not be saying this all the time every day.

And I do not understand how the Washington media can set terms of debate by which a plan as radical as Ryan's is called courageous.

Actually I understand all these things, for they're very easy to grasp, alas. The top 2% have such a complete grip on Washington - not by conspiratorial design, but simply by the network of lobbyists and PACs that has risen up over the last couple of decades to defend their interests - that whatever serves them is now considered logical and right, and anything that challenges their hegemony is considered radical.

This brings us to the budget plan that, as Miller notes, is actually the most fiscally responsible in town: the proposal of the House Progressive Caucus, which I've been meaning to write about for some time. Now, already, just from your having read the name, I know what's going on out there. Conservatives are loading their guns. Lefthalfback is shifting nervously in his chair. Others are, I hope, curious.

The Prog caucus budget would balance the books by 2021 (Ryan, by 2040, Obama by something in between). It would reduce deficits by $5.7 trillion by then. It would take publicly held debt as a percentage of GDP down to under 65% by then (it is now about 73% and expected to go higher).

How would it do this? Largely through cuts to the military and tax increases. I don't like some of the tax increases, especially the Social Security payroll tax ideas, which you can see on page 3 of the above link if you're curious. But other tax increases are good, like the Jan Schakowsky rates I've written about previously.

Personally, I find this plan somewhat out of balance too. I think they would have gained more mainstream cred if they'd included some cuts to domestic programs and made one gesture that everyone knew was a sacrifice for them, like raising the retirement age.

But this plan at least seeks to balance the budget. And I can respect that maybe mainstream cred isn't their goal. If we have a mainstream that thinks Paul Ryan is serious, who needs it? They want to demonstrate an alternative. Good for them.

Remember: The House Republican budget adds $6 trillion to the debt in the next decade yet the GOP is balking at raising the debt limit. The House Republican budget adds $6 trillion to the debt in the next decade yet the GOP is balking at raising the debt limit. The House Republican budget adds $6 trillion to the debt in the next decade yet the GOP is balking at raising the debt limit. The House Republican budget adds $6 trillion to the debt in the next decade yet the GOP is balking at raising the debt limit. The House Republican budget adds $6 trillion to the debt in the next decade yet the GOP is balking at raising the debt limit. The House Republican budget adds $6 trillion to the debt in the next decade yet the GOP is balking at raising the debt limit. The House Republican budget adds $6 trillion to the debt in the next decade yet the GOP is balking at raising the debt limit. The House Republican budget adds $6 trillion to the debt in the next decade yet the GOP is balking at raising the debt limit...

