Rainbows and Unicorns Versus Green Eye Shades

That's the battle shaping up this week as each party makes its case to the American people about Federal spending and budget cuts:

In the next week, anyone who pays any attention to American government is going to get a crash-course in just how much Washington spends, how deep the U.S. is in the hole, how creative government accounting is and how stark the future could look.

It begins with a potential showdown between President Obama and Congressional Democrats pitted against conservative Republicans. Many of these GOP lawmakers just arrived in Washington with marching orders from the heartland to slice and dice spending faster than the sous chef on a Ginsu knife commercial. The main event comes Tuesday night as President Obama delivers his State of the Union message and House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) delivers the official Republican response.

A gifted orator, Mr. Obama enjoys the advantage of the most powerful weapon in the president's toolbox: the bully pulpit before a Joint Session of Congress, broadcast live, coast-to-coast.

Republicans counter President Obama with Ryan, a green eyeshade Jedi Master who understands the intricacies of federal spending, the budget and tax policy better than almost anyone on Capitol Hill.

This is going to get ugly. And if the public really wants Washington to balance the books, it could prove to be very painful.

If you read the rest of the article you'll find a lot of good information about the national debt and how various programs affect...or don't affect it.

The out-of-power party pretty much always loses in the rhetoric battle on State of the Union night. The president has a roomful of people who stand and cheer when they hear something they like, and that gives great visuals and helps the president with his speech delivery. The response is made from a room off the House chamber where there's no audience and no feedback to the speaker. It's very difficult to deliver a speech under those conditions, and if Ryan delivers a green eye-shade speech viewers will tune out droves.

Maybe Ryan can make a passionate defense of GOP policies, but I'm guessing he'll try to "educate" the voters, and that's going to be a tough sell. I wish they'd gone with someone like Chris Christie instead because I think he'd be better able to get the message across to those who choose to stick with the speech.