Today POLITICO Arena asks:

Is the Obama budget a serious stab at deficit reduction? And do congressional Republicans have any credibility in knocking the budget plan since, other than Sen. Rand Paul (Ky.), they have not detailed many cuts that would seriously slice the deficit?

My response:

It’s Valentine’s Day and love is in the air, especially on Capitol Hill where Congress anxiously awaits the 10:00 a.m. arrival of the president’s FY 2012 budget. It should be well shredded by noon.

And as it is, across the land we’ll be hearing the cries of “Not me, please, not my sinecure” — no more plaintively than from the minions of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. How will the average Chicago Bears fan endure without the latest BBC soap — excuse me, Masterpiece Theatre production?

But if that should come to pass, woe be unto those CPB congressional supporters who survived the November shellacking, the very ones who brought us to this sorry state by failing, for the first time in our history, to pass a single spending bill. Hell hath no fury like that of an NPR patron scorned.