Poll: American want to cut government spending that is mostly entitlement, but not entitlements. WHA

I want to have my cake and eat it too. That appears to be the conclusion of this poll released by Bloomberg (via memeorandum): Americans in Poll Want Deficit Cut With Entitlements Secured

Americans want Congress to bring down a federal budget deficit that many believe is "dangerously out of control," only under two conditions: minimize the pain and make the rich pay.

The "making rich pay" meme goes right along in consistency with a prior post of mine: 60 Minutes/Vanity Fair Poll: 50% of Americans that don't pay taxes thinks "rich" people ought to pay more, even though top 1% pay more than bottom 95%. Further: 

The public wants Congress to keep its hands off entitlements such as Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, a Bloomberg National Poll shows. They oppose cuts in most other major domestic programs and defense. They want to maintain subsidies for farmers and tax breaks like the mortgage-interest deduction. And they're against an increase in the gasoline tax.

That aversion to sacrifice is at odds with a spate of recent studies, including one by President Barack Obama's debt panel, that say reductions in Medicare, Social Security, military and other spending are necessary to curb a deficit that totaled $1.29 trillion in the fiscal year ended Sept. 30, or 9 percent of the gross domestic product.

"The idea that we can solve our structural-deficit problems merely by asking more of the well-off is totally unrealistic," said David Walker, who was U.S. comptroller general from 1998 to 2008 and now leads a group advocating against deficits. "The math simply doesn't work."

This is a result of the Democrat playbook - addict the public to government dependency. Few can fathom life without social security of medicare. But most of this country's history didn't include those programs for which the federal government has no constitutional authority. I've talked to many people that insist that it's not social programs but rather the military that is sucking up too much money. The war in Iraq too. As a matter of fact, the military did suck up most of the federal budget - in 1945:

That has LONG come to pass. I agree with the spending proportions of 1945 relative to each other because the feds have the constitutional authority to defend the US, but not the authority to run social experiments via entitlement programs. Ever since the 1930 with the 'new deal', this country has gone downhill because of what I can only term vote buying via wealth redistribution mechanisms. That is not constitutional, and thus I oppose them. As time goes on, entitlements will continue to grow and swamp the entire budget. As a matter of logical fact, when you give away someone else's money, you run out at some point. Here's another graphic that I put up related to defense spending:

Again, defense spending is getting crowded out. Cutting the Pentagon budget that is explicitly allowed by the constitution to fund entitlement programs that are not is a mistake in my opinion. We need to reign in spending, especially of the entitlement variety, not expand it. As for those people insist the military spending is the problem, let me pull these out of the memory hole: Video: The tea party chronicles, episode 9 - Iraq vs Entitlements

Video: The Tea Party Chronicles, Part 4 - Deficit Spending

Video: The Tea Party Chronicles, Part 2 - Entitlements versus the Pentagon, and the assassination of Obama

Oy. Soaking the rich isn't going to help either as the disparity is so far off kilter that the economy will capsize. It's now gotten so bad, so unfair, that the top 1% pay more in federal taxes than the bottom 95%: The rich are paying far more than their fair share, and instead of being thanked are demonized by Obama and their ilk. Not only does bottom 47% of taxpayers pay no federal income tax, but the bottom 40% GET MONEY BACK! 

http://theblogprof.blogspot.com/2010/12/poll-american-want-to-cut-government.html

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