Barack Obama kicked things off with his deficit reduction commission. We've already covered his "Washington game" comment. Here's more:

What exactly is the point of this commission? To come up with a plan tackle our ever-growing deficit. Why couldn't the president or Congress come up with a plan? Politics. You see ... this commission will absolutely be recommending tax increases. While we are not sure in what form those increases will manifest - my bet is on the value-added tax - the fact is that taxes increases will be recommended. If it comes from a special panel of "experts" - like union good Andy Stern - then the president and Congress are absolved of any responsibility for these tax increases. Convenient considering we have an election coming up.

So what is the task at hand? To produce a deficit no bigger than $550 billion by 2015, which would be equal to about 3% of GDP. Current projects don't see that number dipping below 4% of GDP. To reach this goal, it will require deficit savings of at least $250 billion.

Just a little reminder of where we stand right now ... our national debt is $12.8 trillion and is expected to increase by $1 trillion a year for the next decade. The federal government holds $4.5 trillion of this debt and the rest is held by investors, mainly China.

How long do you think we can keep this nonsense up?