And now a word from Alan Simpson

Alan Simpson is my favorite retired senator.  Quick transcript of the highlights from today's Global Public Square on CNN, and yes, I had to rewind and make sure I was hearing this correctly:

I think my party and I have different views on a lot of things.  I guess I'm known as a RINO now, which means a Republican in Name Only, because, I guess, of social views perhaps, or [hehe] common sense might be another one which has escaped members of our party.  Abortion is a horrible thing, but for heavens sake, a deeply intimate and personal decision, and men legislatures shouldn't even vote on it.  Gay Lesbian issues, we're all human beings, we're all God's children, what is this?  And for heavens sake, you have Grover Norquist wandering the Earth in his white robes, saying that if you raise taxes one penny, he will defeat you.  He can't murder ya, he can't burn your house, the only thing he can do to you as an elected official is defeat you for reelection.  And if that means more to you than your country when we need Patriots to come out in a situation when we're in extremity, then you shouldn't even BE in Congress.

You can't cut spending your way out of this hole.  You can't grow your way out of this hole.  You can't tax your way out of this hole.  So, put that in your pipe and smoke it, we tell these people.  This is madness.  If you want to be a purist, go somewhere on a mountain top, pray to the East or something.  But if you want to be in politics, you learn to compromise, and you learn to compromise on issues without compromising yourself.  Show me a guy who won't compromise, and I'll show you a guy with rocks for brains.

And you know who will get hurt the worst in that process, when interest rates go up and inflation kicks in?  The little guy, the one that everybody on their hind legs talks about, "We're doing this for the little guy".  The most vulnerable, the unfortunate.  Well, Merry Christmas.  Those guys are going to get eaten when interest rates go up and inflation kicks in.

[On Romney proposed tax cuts, and Bush era tax cuts] I wouldn't have voted for them if I had been in Congress.  How would you have voted for a tax cut if you were doing two wars on the cheap?  You had two wars you were fighting, you had things that were... the Government, all the income for the Government was only taking care of Medicaid and Social Security, and you do a tax cut.  Every time there was a surplus, and the last time was when this fine gentleman was doing it in '96, you can't get there, but you don't have to do a tax cut.  Get that out of your gourd.  You get into the tax expendatures and you start knocking that stuff off, and that's where you get your revenue.

How much more fun would politics be if Senators would actually speak their minds again?