Howard, I think you nailed it this time. No realistic baseline exists. The baseline the public has in mind is not realistic, nor is the current law, and anything else is little more than a concoction of its author. This is a sorry state of affairs. Perhaps the only answer is to look at each budget proposal de novo and forgo any comparison with previous policy or law. In the present circumstances, that would make the projected deficits even more frightening. Perhaps that's just what we need to get public support for closing the gap.