Voters Are the Cause of America's Fiscal Mess | Gene Healy | Cato Institute: Commentary

Voters Are the Cause of America's Fiscal Mess | Gene Healy | Cato Institute: Commentary: "There's no end of finger-pointing in our Red-Team/Blue-Team battles over fiscal incontinence. But there's one group that rarely gets the blame it merits. That's us. When you look at the positions embraced by the ordinary American voter, you start to suspect that we're getting the government we deserve."

"Add up defense, health care, and Social Security, and you find that the public has declared more than two-thirds of the federal budget off limits. Nondefense discretionary spending — the territory on which most budget fights take place — is 17 percent.

We could (and should) shutter the departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Education, Energy, and Homeland Security (for starters) but even that wouldn't begin to dig us out of the hole we're in."