Would Cutting All Discretionary Spending Cure The National Debt?

Discretionary spending is often the target of those who want to save the national debt. So, would cutting all discretionary spending cure the national debt? Not a chance.

Discretionary Spending

What is discretionary spending? For the purpose of this article, we are talking about every form of spending by the federal government other than money spent on the military, Social Security and Medicare. This means money provided for education, the FBI, justice department, border patrol and every other agency would be cut off and those agencies would quickly cease to exist. Basically, we are talking about a country with a skeleton of a government.

Annual Deficit Figures

The annual deficit for 2010 was roughly $1.6 trillion dollars. When all is said and done, the projections for 2011 are it will be roughly $1.7 trillion. As we move forward, the deficit should get worse each year as liabilities for Social Security and Medicare explode as the populous Baby Boomer generation starts to retire in mass.

Cutting Discretionary Spending

Any debate on the national debt inevitably turns towards the issue of cutting discretionary spending. The basic pitch is the government is wasting money on things it doesn’t need to be paying for. This is completely wrong considering we need the border patrol, FBI and what have you, but let’s assume it is right. Let’s assume a new party comes into power and immediately eliminates all discretionary spending. It would cut $1.3 trillion from our annual budget. The problem is this still leaves us with a deficit of two to three hundred billion dollars a year, a figure that will grow as Medicare and Social Security strain under the weight of retiring Baby Boomers.

In short, the answer is not found with cutting discretionary spending.

Cutting Mandatory Spending

If we are going to focus on any one topic that will make a big difference in cutting the national debt, we have to look at only one area – mandatory spending. Mandatory programs the ones government is committed to under law and must pay. The single biggest focus should be on Medicare and Medicaid. The system is a huge mess and we spend massive amounts of money on these two programs. It is going to get even worse as Baby Boomers start drawing on the programs more and more. Projections are such that we will need to come up with $33 trillion in the next 25 years just to keep both afloat. That’s twice our current deficit! If we can’t cut this cost dramatically, we are done. It is as simple as that.

Discretionary spending cuts can help the national debt problem, but only in small ways. Until our leaders are willing to stand up and deal with the real problem, mandatory programs, the national debt problem will continue to grow and grow until it consumes us. Remember, this is how most great civilizations have ended.

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