Sen. Kent Conrad (D-SD) must be getting bored. He's been having hearings on long-term fiscal issues, but pretty much every speaker has been saying the exact same thing: there's huge problems in Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, so we better start cutting benefits, and maybe find a way to raise revenues. Now I'm not going to go through all the reasons I think this way of identifying the problem and the stark set of options to address it is too narrow and deeply flawed. I'd just ask, has this formulation risen above the level of argument? Are they now the unassailable truth? Have these budget projections become budget prophecy? Seriously, is there no respectable opinion that dissents, that thinks there's a better way to address long-term fiscal issues? Of course, there are others. They should get a hearing, too. I mean, you've got to be bored silly by now, Sen. Conrad. Shake things up a little.