The Tea Party. Recalcitrant? You bet!

Some years ago, following a presidential election, one of the broadcast networks, NBC, I think, did a documentary they titled "The Right Man".

I no longer remember the content, but the gist of their argument was that even with all the rough and tumble of our political campaigns, we always manage to elect the right man - or woman.

We believed that.We lived through Kennedy, Nixon, Carter, Reagan, Bush 41, Clinton, Bush 43, and some 25 Congresses, always believing we had elected the right men and women to trust with our government... the business of running our country. We proceeded to build our careers and our homes, we raised and educated our children.

Then came the year 2009 and we started hearing alarming sounds of deficit and debt. What? This rich and powerful country of ours seriously in debt? Cannot be! We took a look. They told us our national debt was some twelve trillion dollars. We did a little fourth grade math;

$12,000,000 000,000. (OUR DEBT)
             300,000,000  (OUR POPULATION)

Holy cow! That's $40,000. for every man, woman and child in the United States! We said, Stop! For the first time in our lives we began protesting, out in the street, carrying signs! And, we campaigned for like-minded candidates, managing to take back one house of Congress in 2010.

But the spending has not stopped. Now the debt is $16.4 trillion and the population is 308 million. The debt is now $43,000 per person. We prayed for election day to come. It came and low-information people re-elected much of the government that got us into debt. This government tells us they need more money, and more spending. They want to raise the debt ceiling at will. They say we must compromise or we will go over a cliff.

We are already over a cliff. There is no way we can pay back this debt, short of near-miraculous growth. We cannot wait for miracles. We must stop this government now.

No compromise! No more taxes! We want spending cuts. Significant spending cuts and we want them now.

Rid the military of all the unneeded, unwanted bases and weapons programs protected by politicians. Lessen our military footprint on foreign soil.

Change the retirement age for Social Security. Stop providing benefits to people who did not pay into them. Social Security was instituted as old-age insurance. You do not collect insurance benefits unless you have paid the premiums.

Change the eligibility age for Medicare. Get serious about cutting Medicare fraud - it is rampant!

Cut wages of government employees to levels matching salaries of like skills in the private sector.

Eliminate collective bargaining for government employees. Cut excessive pensions for government and private sector employees alike.

End welfare for able-bodied persons. Work or go hungry.

End base line budgeting. Forget last year's budget, start from zero every year.

Completely eliminate government programs that are not working: The departments of Agriculture, Energy, Education, Labor, Housing and Urban Development, Environmental Protection Agency, Commerce, and, yes, the Post Office and Amtrak. All these programs have failed in their intended purpose. Why are we going deeper in debt to support them?

That is a start. That is my idea of compromise. When that is done we can start talking about more cutting.