And not for the reason you might think. Politicians and media pundits love to talk about how we have to make “tough decisions” and “painful choices” in order to get spending “under control.” Of course, the pain is almost always felt by somebody else and the decision not at all tough for the people who actually make it.
No, the “easier said than done” part is about the actual cost savings achieved by cutting spending in the ways that Washington wants to cut spending.
A couple of problems with this, as revealed by a recent poll (via Annie Lowry):
- Although Americans say they want to cut the deficit, they are also opposed to spending cuts, except in areas that account for miniscule parts of the budget (like foreign aid).
- One of the few areas where public willingness to cut spending matches up with proportion of the budget — military spending — is also the part of the budget that is most sacrosanct and untouchable inside the Beltway.
The chart that Lowry created from these poll results makes the dilemma rather obvious: Defense spending and Social Security are the two biggest contributors to the deficit, and in terms of percentage of the budget, they are essentially equal. Yet, only in one of these two spending areas — National Defense — does expenditure match up (or even come close to matching up) with public willingness to cut spending. And foreign aid — at under one percent, the teensy tiniest part of the budget — is the part that over 70% of Americans want to cut.
Again, you can see the problem here. Self-defined ‘fiscal conservatives’ can complain as bitterly and sarcastically as they want about how we can’t afford health care reform or extensions of unemployment benefits, and defense hawks can insist from now until the end of time that military spending is out of bounds — but it isn’t going to be possible to squeeze sufficient savings out of the spending sources that Washington defines as ‘discretionary’ to make a significant dent in the deficit. So either Congress and the White House are going to have to stop genuflecting to the Pentagon and the defense industry, or they are going to have to raise taxes.
Comments posted in the box below go to my e-mail address, and may or may not be published, at my discretion, unless requested to be kept private. Comments for publication should be directed here.
[contact-form]
PAST CONTRIBUTOR.