“We Can’t Cut Spending”
Mark Thoma points to Bruce Bartlett’s Forbes piece on how Republicans are unrealistic about cutting spending. I think Bartlett is basically right about Republicans overestimating the ability of Republican-controlled governments to cut spending, but heavens, the criticism has to cut both ways, dudn’t it?
I question how anyone, anyone can believe that a federal government that has been unable to really cut Medicare in decades can produce $500 billion in cuts to the program to fund new health care spending.
If the votes aren’t there to cut things that the average person doesn’t care about, try cutting a program that millions of elderly Americans (read: voters) love, in part because of the wasteful spending.
