Melodrama on the Potomac.

Geez. Some people sure do get melodramatic when you ask them to please cut up their credit cards, and stop spending other people's money.

Here's Maureen Dowd, on the majority of Americans who don't want to continue to see us spendandpromise the future away, all because some of us think we're entitled to gorge even more on what we can't pay for. (Nevermind the generations to come who will be washing dishes for years to pay off this ever-growing tab...)

Like all great horror movies, this one existed in that surreal zone between fantasy and reality, as the Tea Party zealots created their own reality in midnight meetings.

Just as horror films moved from niche to mainstream in the late-’70s, with successes like “Halloween” and “Alien,” the Tea Party moved from niche to mainstream.

Tea Party budget-slashers didn’t sport the black capes with blood-red lining beloved by the campy Vincent Price or wield the tinglers deployed by William Castle. But in their feral attack on Washington, in their talent for raising goose bumps from Wall Street to Westminster, this strange, compelling and uncompromising new force epitomized “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” and evoked comparisons to our most mythic creatures of the night.

They were like cannibals, eating their own party and leaders alive. They were like vampires, draining the country’s reputation, credit rating and compassion. They were like zombies, relentlessly and mindlessly coming back again and again to assault their unnerved victims, Boehner and President Obama. They were like the metallic beasts in “Alien” flashing mouths of teeth inside other mouths of teeth, bursting out of Boehner’s stomach every time he came to a bouquet of microphones.

But the fear factor? Unnecessary. Truth be told, it's not just the Tea Partiers who are concerned we shouldn't continue borrowing when we've no plan whatsoever for making money in the future to pay the bills off we've already incurred. And that interest rate -- the percentage that's going just toward paying off the principle we've already borrowed?

If that doesn't scare you, nothing will.

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ADDED: I suspect half the problem the wealthy, elite and liberals have with paying-as-we-go is ... in the admitting that they're really not so rich as they like to pretend. That, just like our credit-maxed-out neighbors down the street, admitting we have a spending problem now is akin to admitting that we really never "owned" all that we pretended to in the first place...

Of course, be careful of all those who want to position this as: "We've overspent. We've got to pay the bills on what we've already consumed." Or my personal favorite: "We're all in this together then, now..." Nope, again. While some of youse were splurging and getting accustomed to lifestyles perhaps you really never could afford, plenty of others of us were taking care not to rack up outstanding debt, and to live within our means.

Sure, it's hard to cut back now. But doubling down, continuing to promise and spend other people's money, today?

Game's over, kids. You too.
Pay off what you've already had, and then come with your palms out to ask for perhaps a small donation from those conditioned to sacrifice and plan for tomorrow. We're starting to resent carrying you, and all the outrageous things surely you could do without, if only you'd been taught to budget better in your younger days?

Pity all the old folk and children of tomorrow who no doubt will be out of the streets struggling, while trying to wash enough dishes to pay for those Big Spenders still in denial...

(Are we all really waiting for another World War as the ultimate "stimulus" to bring us out of this mess? God help you if that's your long-term plan, is all I'll say on that. Meep meep, indeed.)

ADDED: Nevermind horror flicks, that at least used to "punish" the wrongdoers (usually identified as horny, drug-abusing teens in the films). I'd liken this mess to what you get when you regularly feed stray cats who are unable to live outdoors on their own. You get more and more and more and more (and more and more and more...) of them showing up at mealtimes. Best result: don't feed 'em in the first place. Else, they tend to reproduce rapidly. You think I'm kidding? I'm not.

Now tell me: who's in fantasyland and who's living in reality again?