What to Cut in the US Budget

The causes of the US Budget deficit are diverse. Causes include two unfunded wars, an unfunded prescription drug plan for Medicare, an unfunded tax cut (The ‘Bush’ Tax Cut), and a large recession. But somehow during 2011 the political focus in the US Politics has been on cutting spending. But the suggested spending is not where the real money is. It’s been more of a witch hunt with folks using the budget cutting ax to simply chop out programs that don’t fit their political agenda.

The largest parts of the US Budget, in no particular order, are Interest on the National Debt, Social Security, Medicare, and Defense. These 4 items account for more that 80% of spending. But no-one is looking at those. Instead their trying to cut funding for a bridge, or a regulatory division of the Commerce Dept. Peanuts.

I say lets cut an aircraft carrier or two. Below is a snip-it of an article in the Jan 9 2012 The Nation by Mikhail Gorbachev. In my opinion, the most important quote in the article is “During the first decade of the twenty-first century US military budgets accounted for nearly half of the world’s spending on armed forces.” Seems to me that that leaves us plenty of room for cutting. Hand me the ax please.

Mikhail Gorbachev Article in The Nation Jan 9 2012