Discretionary?
Ezra Klein says there’s we shouldn’t act as if defense spending (considered discretionary in the budget) in unable to be cut:
My friend Chris Hayes likes to say that “non-defense discretionary spending” is the most pernicious phrase in Washington. It means, essentially, that there’s spending, which we can cut, and then there’s defense spending, which we cannot cut, and shouldn’t even talk about. Defense spending, however, accounts for about 20 percent of federal dollars. Add in the wars of the past few years and it’s accounted for even more than that. Saying you can’t touch defense spending is like going on a diet but letting the milk industry say that you can’t cut back on dairy.
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There aren’t “defense dollars” and then “non-defense dollars.” There are only dollars, and we need to figure out how best to use them.
Hmm… Defense spending is 20% of the budget. And I might find myself in agreement with Klein that perhaps we can defend our nation for a hell of a lot less money than that.
But there’s another distinction here. “Discretionary”. Klein doesn’t ever address the fact that this is an antonym (in the case of a federal budget). There are two types of spending. “Discretionary” and “entitlement”. And entitlement spending is more than twice as large as “non-defense discretionary spending”.
Klein says “there aren’t ‘defense’ and ‘non-defense dollars'” — only dollars. Well, if 42% of our budget is entitlement spending — and that’s a number that’s going to rise significantly with Obamacare — why is it that we should assume that nothing there can or should be cut? You want to put defense spending on the chopping block, Ezra? I’m down with that. I’ll see your proposition and raise you entitlement spending. You ready to call, or are you just bluffing?
