“Entitlements, entitlements, entitlements” is what some, usually Conservative Republicans, point to when talking about the cause of the federal budget deficit.
But of the proposed $3.83 trillion budget, $895 billion is defense spending and mandatory entitlements amount to $788 billion, most of which has to do with Medicare and Medicaid. (The $730 billion Social Security is self funded for the most part and did not use to be part of the main budget.)
We don’t questions that there are significant savings to be found elsewhere (and some worthy causes are not being funded). But clearly the place that an omniscient and omnipotent benign Czar would put his or her attention would be avoiding ill considered wars such as Iraq, trimming the defense behemoth that equals the spending on all the other militaries in the world, and reforming health care…likely with a single payer system.
When our great-great-grandchildren research the end of the American era, they will attribute it largely to politicians and the media pandering to the avaricious military / industrial complex and health care industry…and we can see plenty of evidence of the latter close by. We are not held in a good hand. Instead, the hand is in our pockets and purses!
