An Old-Style Poll on the Debt Crisis

First, take this poll:

1. Raise your hand if you think Uncle Sam — the United States government in Washington, D.C., that is — has been living way beyond his means.
2. Raise your hand if you know what the phrase "President Obama's budget commission" refers to.
3. Raise your hand if you know that the co-chairs of that commission came out with a paper last week that gives some ideas about reining in our ballooning federal deficit and debt before they rein in America's future economic growth.
4. Raise your hand if you have the slightest idea what it was that the co-chairs suggested.  
5. Raise your hand if you believe the federal budget needs to be balanced — or, if the budget is not balanced entirely, at least the remaining yearly budget deficit has to be reduced to a fraction of what it is today.
6. Raise your hand if you think the budget can be balanced, or the deficit sufficiently shrunk, without any tax increases.
7. Raise your hand if you think the budget can be balanced, or the deficit sufficiently shrunk, without cutting federal spending in any major way.
8. Raise your hand if your hand was up for either of the previous two questions.

Now, if your hand was up for question 8 — or even if it wasn't — read Ruth Marcus's column in today's Washington Post and then take the poll again.

If you are still left with your hand up on question 8, congratulations! You may be one of the roughly half of Americans who believe the "budget fairy [can] magically solve the problem by tucking a trillion or two under the national pillow," and that "snipping away at waste, fraud and abuse and sprinkling magic growth-dust on the economy" will fix everything.