![]() Indeed, spending on entitlements and interest on the debt, barring any changes, will grow faster than the economy indefinitely. The big entitlements take up the largest single part of the budget now - about 43% of all spending - and will swallow up ever larger chunks over the next few decades because of the aging of the population and the still-fast-growing cost of health care. That's because the real drivers of the country's debt - in particular the entitlement programs Medicare and Social Security - are largely exempt from the March 1 cuts. ![]() They don't really address the debt: The irony is that while the spending cuts will reduce deficits, they won't do anything to keep the country's debt from growing at an unsustainable rate. ![]() That doesn't mean more can't be cut from discretionary, but the magnitude, the manner and the timing of the March 1 cuts are ill-advised. So much so that even without the March 1 cuts, discretionary spending is on track to fall to a 50-year low as a share of the economy by the end of the decade. What's more, discretionary spending has already been subject to spending curbs. They cut from the smallest part of the budget: Most of the cuts will come from discretionary spending - defense and nondefense - which together account for just over a third of all spending.
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