Joe The Plumber

Kinda like Glenn The Blogger:

Samuel Wurzelbacher, better known as Joe the Plumber, tells TIME he's so outraged by GOP overspending, he's quitting the party and he's the bull's-eye of its target audience. But he also said he wouldn't support any cuts in defense, Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid which, along with debt payments, would put more than two-thirds of the budget off limits.

For a serious grappling with fiscal imbalance, check out Bruce Bartlett's latest column. Money quote:

David Walker of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation suggests that the retirement age (both early and normal) must rise, the formula used to calculate initial Social Security benefits should be revised and the index for calculating cost-of-living increases be reduced.

Walker also acknowledges that higher revenues will be necessary, a view endorsed, somewhat surprisingly, by Douglas Holtz-Eakin, who was chief economic adviser to John McCain last year. As he said at the bipartisan conference, "The era of tax-cutting is over."