Recommended: The Obama Downgrade

The news yesterday that Standard & Poor's Ratings Services was considering downgrading the rating on U.S. bonds was hardly unexpected, as noted in the Wall Street Journal piece The Obama Dowwgrade. The key chart in that piece is this one:

As it shows, under this administration federal spending has skyrocketed, and thus far the administration has produced no plan to reduce it. Even in the current debt talks, apparently President Obama has proposed future cuts, but been unwilling to specify even to his own party exactly what he will cut, which suggests that in fact the promised cuts are probably illusory (when the time comes, he will probably propose politically unacceptable cuts, so that they won't actually occur.)

Playing fiscal chicken in the current debt ceiling negotiations is certainly unwise, but what alternative do the Republicans have if the President in fact isn't interested in actually reducing federal spending?