But too often, these budget battles are being fought with legal arguments about precedent and legitimacy, advanced by politicians trained in the adversarial, prove-me-wrong traditions of American law.Even Republicans who loathe Mr Cruz defend the constitutional principles underpinning his scheming.
But "The Contract," set to live music by Michael Torke and performed by a cast of 36 adults and 18 child performers, addresses such weighty (and timely) themes as the struggles between right and wrong and tradition and the modern.
Not that there's anything wrong with tradition or nostalgia, but clinging to "guns and religion".
A dozen years ago the Mostly Mozart Festival epitomized much of what was wrong with the tradition-bound ways of classical music.
The sulky teenager has, in fact, got it slightly wrong: the family tradition is to be impregnated by the landlord of the Queen Vic – not, as in this case, the landlord's little brother.
I am not saying that we are right and that other countries – such as the UK – with different traditions are wrong.
The title of a best-selling book that year asked: "America: What Went Wrong?" In the best traditions of our nations, Americans determined to set things right.
"It's as if the German authorities are telling us that our traditions are wrong," said Ayse Demir, deputy director of the Turkish community in Germany who was born and raised in Germany.
There was nothing wrong with great American traditions like segregation, gays in closets, straight marriages, back alley abortions, police abuse, child and animal punishment and in the case of animals, you could even eat them if you went too far!
However, it would be clearly wrong to claim that traditions such as blues, rock, heavy metal, rap or dance music derive primarily from 'art music.'" According to scholars David Hatch and Stephen Millward, Black Sabbath, and the numerous metal bands that they inspired, have concentrated lyrically "on dark and depressing subject matter to an extent hitherto unprecedented in any form of pop music".
With the growth of religious extremism in mind, Mr Starr might have dwelled longer on that anti-liberal perennial.Mr Starr's main concern, however, is challenging the right-wing liberal story of what went wrong with the liberal tradition.
