Smoke and mirrors

MANIFESTO

For all the talk about deficit reduction and whatever other nonsense the Washingtonians are spewing these days, the fact remains that

[b]oth the White House and Republicans are only tackling domestic nondefense discretionary spending—a mere 10 percent of the federal budget.

"That is the ultimate irony here and the biggest frustration for any of us who watch the budget very closely," [blogger Stan] Collender says. "The truth is, though, that they're talking about cutting a very, very small part from a very small part of the budget.

"Until people start talking about Social Security, Medicare, agricultural price supports and revenues, this deficit's going to be high for a while."

While Collender includes revenue (i.e., higher taxes) in his list, he's still only partly right as he fails to include defense in the catalogue.

The Iraq and Afghanistan "wars" have cost the US $6 trillion thus far. (And the latter incursion suffers from a hideous strategy to boot!) If legislators were really interested in reducing costs and didn't have a hidden agenda in all of this, they might be able to see where cuts should and could easily be made.

Unfortunately, very few such legislators are around these days.