If by leeches you also include the military and pensions, you’re right.
How many on this forum will be willing to slash the military budget to crawl out of this hole?
We need to slash *everything*.
And if we say to ourselves “We can’t cut the military! That’s a threat to national security!”, then we need to figure out which is better....voluntary reductions now on our terms, or involuntary reductions in the future on, possibly, an enemy’s terms.
If you really care about the military you would be in favor of tariffs to stop the off shoring of our manufacturing base. We can recruit and train troops in a hurry, you just can’t build and man a steel mill over night.
Defense is one of the few things the Federal government does that are legitimate functions of government.
Why should we cut a legitimate function to preserve illegitimate functions?
We could actually cut the military if we were energy-independent, but not before that.
IF we cram the Gov’t back into the hole that it belongs, restricted to the functions as listed in the Constitution, fulfilling only legitimate funtions, then this can be overcome.
Entitlements are not a function. NASA, not. Illegal amnesty and support, not. But military (Defense) is. Should the cost be controlled? Absolutely. It is not meant to be a monetary black hole.
But to lump defense in with entitlements is worng. Defense is a legitimate function of FedGov.
We station troops all over the world, at enormous cost, without any economic benefit to us. If we want to play the Empire game, we need to play it to the hilt.
Otherwise retreat to the continental borders and let the world police itself. We can't afford to keep this game up.
And the military pension system needs to be overhauled. We can't afford to have three armies, with only one fighting. That is why we are using mercs now.