It has become an article of faith among many of you conservatives that "welfare" is driving our federal deficit. Peter Goodman points out, however:
Between 2001 and 2011, the tax cuts delivered by George W. Bush and continued under Obama have cost roughly $2.8 trillion. That is about 17 times the roughly $165 billion that has been spent on the primary federal grant that funds welfare.
Indeed, conservatives don't understand how we spend our money or why we have such a big deficit. My man Paul Krugman calls the U.S. "an insurance company with an army" because "the vast bulk of its spending goes to the big five: Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, defense, and interest on the debt."
Prof. Krugman instructs conservatives: "if you want smaller government, either you're talking about cuts in the big five, or you have no idea what you're talking about."
By Peter S. Goodman
August 13, 2012 | Huffington Post
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