e21 Asks Budget Negotiations: What Should be the Top Priority?

Since last week, we have been asking our readers the question, “During Budget Negotiations, What is the Most Important Change Congress Should Make?” The results of our inaugural, admittedly unscientific, e21 Asks section show that “Cut Discretionary Spending” is our reader’s top priority

, with 31 percent of the vote. “Limit Social Security’s Growth” came in second with 27 percent, followed by “Create Competition in Medicare” (21 percent), “Eliminate Tax Loopholes” (19 percent), and “End the Sequester,” which came in last with only 2 percent of the vote. 

e21’s editors were split between the choices of “Limit Social Security’s Growth” and “Create Competition in Medicare.” The reason we choose these two options over the other priorities was that even if the United States cut all domestic discretionary spending ($611 billion) and a third of its defense spending ($218 billion out of $652 billion), the federal government would still have a budget deficit of over $90 billion.

Put another way, even if there were no National Parks, Environmental Protection Agency, Center for Disease Control, Food and Drug Administration, Securities and Exchanges Commission, Department of Homeland Security, Coast Guard, Veteran’s benefits, highway funds, student loans, food stamps, and Congress, U.S. debt would continue to grow.

For this reason we do not see “Cut Discretionary Spending” as the top priority for the necessary long-term budget reform. 

The United States spends 90 percent of its $2.7 trillion in tax revenue on entitlements, such as Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, and interest payments on its debt—and this percentage is rising.

These numbers show that any serious budget conversations must address the unsustainable expansion of entitlement programs. They, along with interest payment on the debt, cost over $2.4 trillion in 2013. That number is projected to rise to $3.4 trillion over the next decade.

Let us hope that Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) and Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) can find a way to rein in out-of-control entitlement spending during their budget conferences. There will never be a politically popular time to reform entitlements, but we can no longer afford to avoid confronting this issue.