Say Anything Blog

During the campaign Barack Obama spent some time talking about spending cuts.  Normally, for conservatives, that’d be something they’d want to hear from a politician.  But unfortunately, the only spending cuts Barack Obama was ever really specific about was cutting spending on the war in Iraq.

Here’s an example of his schtick:

You don’t defeat a terrorist network that operates in eighty countries by occupying Iraq. You don’t protect Israel and deter Iran just by talking tough in Washington. You can’t truly stand up for Georgia when you’ve strained our oldest alliances. If John McCain wants to follow George Bush with more tough talk and bad strategy, that is his choice—but it is not the change we need.

But what’s interesting is that while Obama and his Democrat comrades (people like Barney Frank are already calling for a 25% cut in defense spending), the truth is that defense spending isn’t really the problem in this country.  In fact, in terms of the overall economy, defense spending has actually been at its lowest point in 67 years:

Another interesting note from that graphic: While income tax receipts, and overall federal tax receipts, have remained largely unchanged since 1965 non-defense spending has gone up 42%.

Obama and the Demcorats can rail about spending in Iraq all they want, but the real problem is spending here at home.  Namely, entitlement spending on out of control programs like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

If Obama really wants to fix spending issues here in America he’d fix those programs, and the only real fix is to do away with them.