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.

Undisciplined

econ

The American Addiction to Transfer Payments

> 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.
