Welfare spending accounts for a whopping 1 percent of the US Budget. Most welfare recipients stay on welfare for a year and then they're off, hardly the culture of dependency described in popular myth.

Most of the poor in this country are working poor: people working more than one job, often without any health insurance. The myth of the "lazy" poor has been perpetuated to dismantle social programs.

Obama is proposing a tax cut for everyone making less than $250,000, and a slight tax increase for everyone above. The tax increase he proposes is the same tax we had under Clinton, which, despite the poison rhetoric against it in 1993 when it was enacted, did not stifle growth.

The Republicans in Congress did their part during the 90s to thwart spending. For that they deserve credit as well (I'm trying to be fair here!). Then, when they took the White House and had both houses of Congress, they spent like drunken sailors -- and Bush didn't veto a single one of their spending bills!

I agree we need to be more fiscally responsible, and as a Democrat, I will hold leaders of my own party accountable that they restore fiscal sanity to our government. If they don't, the Republicans will be taking over in four years.