House Armed Services chair: The 'main drivers of our deficit' are entitlements

Think Progress has a simple history lesson for chairman of the House Armed Services committee Buck McKeon (R-CA).

That's in response to idiot McKeon's interview with Bloomberg news in which McKeon insisted that the "main drivers of our deficit" are "entitlements."

Bloomberg: Should the U.S. change its strategy of global engagement in light of budget constraints? If so, what should a new strategy focus on?

McKeon: The special role the United States plays in world affairs should not be taken for granted. We abdicate our global leadership at our own peril, and the peril of free nations everywhere. It's a position worth preserving. Our military has already absorbed several rounds of budget cuts, so we need to start looking at the main drivers of our deficit?entitlements?to fix this problem.

And the Bush tax cuts never happened. As a reminder, Social Security is self-funding, and has never contributed a thin dime to the deficit. In terms of the big debt and deficit culprits, Medicare and Medicaid are a drop in the bucket. And as Think Progress points out, "[W]hat McKeon doesn't mention is that U.S. military spending has nearly doubled in the last 10 years, is higher than at any point since World War II, and the cuts he claims will result in a 'hollowed-out military' will actually just bring DOD back to 2007 spending levels."

But Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security recipients probably aren't bankrolling Buck McKeon, chairman of the Armed Services committee. He knows which side his bread is buttered on?the black hole of war contractors we're wasting $12 million a day on.

Source: http://feeds.dailykos.com/~r/dailykos/index/~3/M4S53ziwMTs/-House-Armed-Services-chair:-The-main-drivers-of-our-deficit-are-entitlements

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