I’m starting to believe the only way out of this recession and national deficit is through tough choices that offend the ideologies of every political party:

• higher taxes for everyone
• spending cuts, including the military
• bailouts for state/local safety nets that ease real human suffering, not select industries
• finding and migrating to foreign aid measures that actually work
• renegotiating way-above-market public pensions inked during the golden bubble years
• forcing big banks to cramdown city/county debts that arose due to fraud
• downsizing the massively expensive and world-leading incarceration industrial complex, perhaps by depoliticizing the CJS
• reducing barriers to starting up new businesses, especially rent seeking at the local/state level
• stimulating the wedding industry by ensuring the freedom of everyone to marry

Now who in Congress is up for all that?