The Business Of America Is...Insurance And Guns?

Ezra Klein argues that if you look at the federal government's actual spending, that's exactly what the country does:  it's a heavily armed insurance company.

Two of every five dollars goes to Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid, all of which provide some form of insurance. A bit more than a buck goes to the military. Then there’s a $1.50 or so for assorted other programs -- education, infrastructure, environmental protection, farm subsidies, etc. Some of that, like unemployment checks and food stamps, is also best understood insurance spending. And then there’s another 40 cents of debt repayment. Calvin Coolidge once said that the business of America is business. Well, the business of the American government is insurance. Literally. If you look at how the federal government spends our money, it’s an insurance conglomerate protected by a large, standing army.

But you wouldn’t know it to listen to the debate over the budget. When House Republicans talk about cutting spending and the Obama administration talks about freezing spending, neither group is talking about the vast expanse of the government’s commitments. They’re looking at a small corner of the budget, the 12.3 percent known as non-defense discretionary spending. The stuff that’s not Medicare, not Medicaid, not Social Security or the military. It’s the odds-and-ends, so to speak.

If you look at Ezra's chart, he has a point:





It's that blue slice that both the Republicans and President Obama want to cut, it's just a question of how much.  So far, both sides are completely ignoring the yellow Social Security and Medicare part, and the orange Pentagon spending part.  In other words, all the cuts are coming out of just one-eighth of the total budget, and we're all acting like this is the only game in town.

Now, I don't want to see any cuts from the yellow section either, but you'd figure we could maybe start with the orange piece.

Just saying.