The Republican leadership has made a huge mistake by conflating discretionary spending with social security retirement and medicare and pretending to try to solve both problems at the same time. This is all part of the program to confuse the people and to resist actually downsizing the federal government.
If we cut ALL spending except for interest payments on the debt, Defense, SS, Medicare and Medicaid we would still have a deficit.
All of the above and then some must be cut if we are serious about saving our country.