Not serious budget debate

The Republicans are super-duper, really, really, really serious about cutting spending. I disagree. In fact, I don’t think they are serious at all. The Republicans in the House want to cut $100 billion of non-security discretionary spending from the fiscal year 2011 budget. This is a ridiculous way to reduce the budget deficit. The White House proposed budget for 2011 is $3.8 trillion. $2.4 trillion is non-discretionary (mainly social security, medicare, and interest on the debt). Defense accounts for about $850 billion. Discretionary spending, by contrast, is around $500 billion, or about 13% of the total budget. In fact, the projected budget deficit for this year is more than double all discretionary spending! Trying to “balance the budget” through “painful cuts” or by “eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse,” but fencing off 87% of that budget from any cuts makes zero sense. Even if Congress eliminated all discretionary spending, the US budget deficit would still be more than 5% of GDP. There is simply no way to reduce the budget deficit to manageable levels (2%-3% of GDP) without raising taxes, and/or reducing spending on medicare, social security and/or defense. None. At. All.