What You’d Have to Cut if You Take Options Off the Table
Chart showing that to balance the budget in 10 years without raising taxes…
…it would require a 27 percent cut to all spending. If defense cuts were off the table, cuts to the rest of the budget would increase to 31 percent. If defense, Medicare and Social Security were off the table, the rest of the budget — which includes Medicaid, Obamacare subsidies, mandatory spending for food assistance and other anti-poverty programs, and discretionary spending for things like veterans’ health and transportation — would need to be cut by 70 percent.
So what would it take to balance the federal budget in a decade?
The Republican Study Committee, a group that includes 173 of the 222 Republican House members, has offered a fairly detailed plan. Its budget includes deep cuts to Medicaid and to discretionary spending on things other than defense, the part of the budget that funds functions like environmental protection, public transportation, medical research and homeland security. But those changes alone don’t get the budget to balance. The committee also relies on significant reductions in Social Security and Medicare to erase the deficit.
from New York Times
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