Somewhere, the center has got to take the reins from the fanatics on both sides.

I disagree with one major point of the article, however, They give Standard and Poor's a pass on the bond rating downgrade, when S+P is as much a part of the political soup that's causing this mess as anyone else.

The entitlement issues needs to be dealt with, and the tax code as it exists needs to be scrapped. Completely. Clean sheet rewrite. Either a flat tax with a hard basic deduction raised annually by the CPI (as in anything under $30K isn't touched, adjusted for inflation) or a national sales tax.