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It has been known for over six months that there would need to be broad points of a compromise for the government to continue to operate.

1. Someone will be paying more in taxes.

2. Some Federal agencies and programs will be eliminated.

3. The Debt Limit will have to be raised by some amount.

The fighting is over the details in each of these broad points. Some of the suggestions put forward are good, some not so good.

1. I support eliminating some of the special interest deductions. Corporate Jets, Horses. Do not support others, Oil and gas companies. I also know that the deductions I support eliminating will not bring in that much extra revenue to the Government (I have seen estimates for the Horse deduction of under $1Mill)

2. I am worried in that I have seen no discussion of what programs will be on the chopping block. The Congress needs to understand that if the cuts are not made before the end of this fiscal year and continued through the next I do not consider them to be cuts. Baseline accounting must be eliminated.

3. I like Bohner’s formula. For every dollar of cuts we raise the ceiling by one dollar. However given my restricted definition of cuts, ten times the amount of spending cut from the budget for the rest of the year and not restored in next year's budget would be the amount I would use.

1. I support eliminating some of the special interest deductions. Corporate Jets, Horses. Do not support others, Oil and gas companies.

Seriously? So how do you defend the percentage of sales depletion rule, which allows oil and gas companies to claim depletion deductions over the life of an oil field that exceed their cost of acquiring the extraction rights? On what grounds do you defend the manufacturing tax credit?

I also know that the deductions I support eliminating will not bring in that much extra revenue to the Government (I have seen estimates for the Horse deduction of under $1Mill)

That's also true of the deductions you don't support. If they don't really bring all that much revenue in, what's the harm in supporting them if they get us big spending cuts in return?

2. I am worried in that I have seen no discussion of what programs will be on the chopping block.

I agree with you. We need to make sure any cuts that we do get are real before signing off on any deal, and they need to be specific.