The Beltway Loves the Welfare-Warfare State

President Obama has submitted his latest budget to Congress. It will be the last budget he submits to Congress, the last budget battle he faces with Congress, and the last time his budget will be dead on arrival in Congress.

For the first time in history, the federal budget for the next fiscal year, which begins on October 1 of  this year, will top $4 trillion. To put this in historical perspective, the federal budget first reached $100 billion in the fiscal year 1962. It first reached $1 trillion in the fiscal year 1987 (thank you, Ronnie). It first reached $2 trillion in 2007 (thank you George W. Bush). And it first reached about $3 trillion ($2.982 trillion) in fiscal year (thanks again W).

The idea that it is just Obama and the Democrats that are big spenders is ludicrous. The Republicans have controlled the House of Representatives for six of Obama’s eight years.

As usual, though, about one-fourth of the budget is for so-called discretionary spending for domestic and military programs and about three-fourths is for what is termed mandatory spending: Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and other entitlement programs, as well as interest on the massive federal debt, which now exceeds $19 trillion.

Entitlements are nothing but welfare programs. And these are just the means-tested welfare programs. Social Security and Medicare are not means-tested programs. One can be a millionaire and still participate in them. The Heritage proposals focus on just a small part of federal spending.

And fourth, the Blueprint for Balance never gets to the root of the problem. It is a blueprint for the welfare/warfare state. “There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root,” said Henry David Thoreau. The U.S. government is the most bloated, powerful, intrusive, and dominant government in the history of the world. Reform is not what this monstrosity called the U.S. government needs. It needs to be dismantled, root and branch.

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