But Greek voters are equally certain that it's unfair for them to suffer years of slim government budgets and high unemployment in order to repay foreign banks and richer northern neighbors, which have reaped outsized benefits from closer European integration.
At the start of this year, he notes, both chambers of Congress passed budgets, and "had one side not decided to pursue a strategy of brinksmanship" they could have come together and figured it out.
Any continuing support beyond 1 April will have to be funded from existing budgets.
And the budgets this series clearly top anything the show's original broadcaster could match.
The financial crisis has certainly squeezed health budgets across the EU, and in Germany, consultants say that the state cannot afford the appropriate treatment for the large numbers of depression patients who present.
Even so, booming budgets have lured a few Americans east.
Reports suggest an extra 250,000 primary places are needed this year, and with land costs escalating in inner cities and budgets shrinking, fulfilling the need will be difficult, but it is right to say that it should not be done by allowing class sizes to creep upwards.
Ireland has just passed one of the most brutal, some would say most important, budgets in its history as an independent state.
We must hope the next government doesn't make the same mistake as this one by protecting NHS budgets at the expense of local government and social care.
One healthcare professional claimed Stevens was a "positive uniting figure but [was] blundering on personal budgets and specialised commissioning, and seeing co-commissioning as a silver bullet".
Shorter contracts with tight budgets from commissioners are also placing pressure on cash flow and working capital at the frontline.
