This is also why substantial cuts are so politically difficult. Even if the bureaucracies are gutted with a machete, Ron Swanson style, most of the spending will still be in place. It would take Congressional reform to entitlements to appreciably reduce spending.

> Many are not aware that these entitlements—particularly Social Security benefits, Medicare, and Medicaid—comprise fully two-thirds of federal expenditures. Instead, many mistakenly believe that defense expenditures are the largest single federal expenditure when, in fact, defense comprises only about 13 percent of the federal budget.

^THIS

Every year in my Public Econ class I do a pre-quiz where I ask students to guess what the Federal Government spends the most money on:  Defense, Social Security & Medicare, Education, or Interest on Debt.

Students usually guess Defense and are surprised to learn that defense spending is only a relatively small fraction of the federal budget.


SimpleStacker

@Undisciplined, I have been trying to make links to a previous post before, without success.
How do you make them?

Extra commentary: https://stacker.news/items/768034/r/Undisciplined

Undisciplined

lol @Rothbardian_fanatic posted the same after you!

Imyourfed

There is plenty of commentary today about continuing large annual US federal budget deficits and the large federal debt that keeps mounting as a result of these relentless deficits.

econ

By Jane L. Johnson
> There is plenty of commentary today about continuing large annual US federal budget deficits and the large federal debt that keeps mounting as a result of these relentless deficits.