The National Budget

The party game du jour in Washington is currently the national budget, or how can you claim to be a budget hawk without actually doing anything. The Dems are proposing to-the-bone cuts of up to $6B. John at Power Line puts this in perspective by comparing the proposed budget to a MacDonalds big double burger, biggie fries, and medium drink. The proposed reduction comes to the equivalent of 1/3 of a french fry.

Call it the Donkey Diet. You order the biggest meal combo Micky D's has, and show your commitment by tossing 1/3 of 1 fry into the trash before devouring the rest. Frankly I think John overthought the problem. The caloric count of 1/3 of a fry can probably be found in the grease that soaks the paper that you were throwing out anyway, so go ahead, indulge.

An order of magnitude bigger than the Donks, at $60B, is the Repub proposal. This is equivalent to tossing 3 and 1/3 fries out. To hear the Dems, this is comparable to the recent famine in Ethiopia, or maybe Stalins forced famine in Ukraine.

Rand Paul is distinguishing himself from the flouncing budget dilettantes in the Senate by proposing cuts totaling some $500B. That would require forgoing some 31 fries, but not to worry, there are about 87 fries in the original order. Actually balancing the budget would require you forgo the fries completely, and a couple ounces of the soft drink as well.

Oh! The humanity!