To set the stage, remember this, the killer graphic from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities on the budget and deficits.

The Bush tax cuts, which should have expired in January and which the GOP budget would make permanent, and the Bush wars. That's what is driving the deficit that the GOP says it cares about ( though we know better ). The very fact that jobs, the Bush tax cuts, and the wars aren't the focus of the deficit discussion suggests that for most politicians and pundits, Dem and GOP alike, this is just politics. But not all.

For example, Sen. Al Franken, who introduced the Pay for War Resolution in the Senate yesterday.

The Pay for War Resolution gives Congress the option to finance war through budget cuts, creating new revenue or a combination of both budgetary means. Franken said the bill is meant to avoid a repeat of the $1.25 trillion that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have added to the national debt. “We have to ensure that Iraq and Afghanistan remain anomalies in American history,” Franken said on the Senate floor Wednesday. “And that’s what my resolution seeks to do. It will ensure that future wars don’t make our deficit and debt problem worse. It will ensure that Congress and American citizens must face the financial sacrifice of going to war. And it will force us to decide whether a war is worth that sacrifice.” “In the last ten years our wars have been paid for by borrowing,” Franken said. “The Iraq War was accompanied by a massive tax cut. That failed fiscal experiment created the impression that war requires no financial sacrifice. We know that is just not true. The question is who will bear the financial sacrifice, the generation that has decided to go to war or its children and grandchildren?”

In a press release Franken noted broad support for the idea from across an ideological spectrum, but with the most salient comment from Dean Baker, Co-Director, Center for Economic and Policy Research: “If we think that a situation requires the men and women in our military to risk their own lives, then the rest of us should at least be willing to pay for the cost of this adventure with our tax dollars.”

The most serious policy-maker in Washington D.C. today is former comedian. Go figure.