I heard House Majority Leader Eric Cantor on the radio today say we can't spend money we don't have. 

Eric flunked the test. There is no such thing as us not having money. The United States has as much money as it wants.  

Here's how it works. 

There's a file somewhere on some computer that contains the amount of money in the US checking account. Ben Bernanke has write access to that file. It's up to him and the Federal Reserve Board to say what number is in there. If they have a meeting and decide the US should have twice as much money, then here's what Dr. Bernanke does: 

1. Sits down at his laptop. 

2. Opens the file. 

3. Changes the number. 

4. Saves.  

Eric Cantor also "thinks" we should balance the budget, again based on the fiction that there's a number of dollars that we have. Okay, technically, if both houses of Congress voted for it and 2/3 of the state legislatures, they could have the amendment. It would make as much sense as passing an amendment to say that pi is 3, instead of the irrational number that it is. They could have the amendment, but I'm fairly sure the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter wouldn't change. 

Some things, sad to say, are not subject to a vote of Congress.  

We could pass a law that says none of us have to die. Oh wouldn't that be nice!  

The Republicans are "simple folk" and all this complicated elite nonsense is too damn complicated. Too. Complicated. We think life should be simpler. We decided that it is. And we're right! How do we know? We read Atlas Shrugged. Ayn Rand told us we were right. 

Ohhhh kayyyy.