Public Supports Continued Strong Senior Benefits

It is a commonplace that surveys ask the American people what they want to cut in specific programs. What surveys never do is ask the American people to link spending cuts to deficit reduction. Everyone knows you can't cut the deficit without cutting spending. This nonsense continues wtih news interviewers, who are anxious to get politicians to identify specific cuts they would make in specific programs.

The right way to do this is to give people a more complex survey in which they link spending cuts to deficit reduction. They get to choose specific cuts in specific programs and specific deficit reductions but the combined choices have to add up to zero or less. That way then can balance program needs against available funds. It would be easy to do such a survey on the Internet.

The real problem is that no one wants to cut their own program if the money is just going to fund some other program that doesn't benefit them. And they don't trust politicians to keep their word. So when someone says "I'll cut X by Y dollars" they just don't trust them to use the savings to reduce the deficit.

The American people are ready to attack the deficit but not in some piecemeal program. We need real leadership. That's what politicians are elected to do, not to engage in some prestige competition with one another that does nothing but feather their nest and those of their supporters.

Steve Fritz of MD 11:59AM February 18, 2011