Cut Spending! (But Not Really)
February 19th, 2012
Four Deficit Myths an da Frightening Fact: This WSJ article is spot-on about the deficit.
Myth No. 1 is that the American people now demand deficit reduction as never before. Don’t believe it. Yes, if you ask Americans about the deficit, they’ll tell you they hate it—as they always have. […]
Furthermore, once the discussion gets down to specifics, it is difficult to find anything the public favors that would make a serious dent in the deficit. No higher taxes, please, except on millionaires. No cuts in big programs like Social Security or Medicare.
Maybe defense cuts; attitudes about that vary from time to time. The one thing Americans consistently want to cut is foreign aid, which constitutes a minuscule share of U.S. government spending. Thus the attraction to lower deficits is only skin deep. It has always been thus.
As I’ve said before, we all hate the deficit, we all say we need to cut spending, but no one wants to actually cut spending.
This part was also quite interesting.
Myth No. 4 is that America has a generalized problem of runaway spending, one that requires cuts across the board. No. The truth is that we have a huge problem of exploding health-care costs, part of which shows up in Medicare and Medicaid spending.