Actors, editors, and complainers....
I agree with your entire stated plan.
So far as Boehner is concerned, there is only one sort of friendly news outlet for republicans. They lost the media war during the election, and they’re losing it now.
If Boehner can get the nation to hear his “I agree to tax millionaires and above”, then it might get their attention.
So far as the spending cliff is concerned, I think that gutting the military is a huge mistake.
Personally I am in favor of doing an across the board 10% cut in budget for every Federal Department for the next 3 years including the defense budget. I also think that we have way too many Generals and other high mucky mucks in the military, especially considering that we are not currently engaged in something like WWII. We also have way too many stupid bureaucrats in the pentagon and too many vendors who have landed cushy construction jobs because they know the right Senator or Congressman.
So I favor cutting everything by 10% immediately and telling the secretaries of each department that they need to deal with the fact that they are only going to have 90% of the money they had last year to deal with this year.
I would not suggest that any member of the military have their pay cut, but then military pay for enlisted personnel has never been a big budget issue. The problem in the military is that it is top heavy. An across the board cut of 30% over 3 years is not going to kill anyone. I've had to do that several times in my lifetime. Austerity is everyone's problem when you are 20 trillion dollars in the red.