Familiarize yourself with the term Quadrillion. It follows Trillion and will come into common use in the not to distant future. Cutting the budget by 1% is a joke as anyone who handles a household budget knows. Perhaps if you have a PhD in economics from Harvard you might think of such a cut as extreme. Some commentators have suggested that the Tea Party has peaked and on the way out. The Tea Party was a response to corrupt government which led to suffering. As this suffering increases so will the Tea Party.