Just as the US Federal Government is close to a default, I have found another great statement by Walter E. Williams talking about the federal debt.
For what I see, the rule for what they cut appears to be “look around and see who are the politically weak recipients”.
But without deep cuts in welfare and warfare spending, no balanced budget will be achieved. Total spending is about $3.5 trillion and welfare ($1,500 billion) and warfare ($700 billion) make up almost two thirds of all spending. Given that the other third can hardly be cut, the deficit of $1.3 trillion cannot be eliminated without severe cuts to both military and entitlement spending.
However, to some people -mainly democrats- increasing taxes might appear to be an alternative. Yet, over the last one hundred years, the US federal government has taken an ever greater share of national income. The result of growing government revenues has, in fact, not been a reduction in federal deficits. Thus, raising taxes will certainly imply more governmental waste but no reduction in deficits. The only way to keep government within its justified limits is to have a constitutional law restricting government spending to a certain percentage of GDP. Yet, as Williams points out, this has been attempted twice. Unfortunately, without success.
Swiss Economist 