You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

WaPo:

House approves dramatic cuts in federal spending in 235-189 vote

The cuts come to $61 billion. That's about 1.6% of the $3.81 trillion 20011 federal budget. It's about 3.7% of the 2011 federal budget deficit of $1.645 trillion.

Cutting less than 4% of your over-spending isn't "dramatic." It isn't "drastic." And, the fevered imaginings of US Rep. Norm Dicks (D-WA) aside, it's for damn sure not even close to "a meat-ax approach on top of a meat-ax approach."

Not only is $61 billion not "dramatic," "drastic" or "a meat-ax approach on top of a meat-ax approach," it's not even, to use a much over-used word, "serious."

"Serious" would be cutting that $1.654 trillion deficit entirely. For a little gold "sensible" star, cut a little more than that to get a surplus and use that surplus to draw down debt principal. Only at some point well beyond those would words like "dramatic" become accurately descriptive.

$61 billion is just campaign propaganda grab-ass.

But I guess it's better than nothing.