A lot of the spending cuts are really just window dressing to get support from people, like you, who thinks that the federal government is somehow run amok on its profligate spending.

This is not an entirely unreasonable position.

JFK's early 60's federal budget, 50 years ago, was $100B, over half of which was for defense at the peak of the Cold War, in a nation half our present population.

Federal bloat is now approx $3800B/yr.

2:1 population.... 38:1 federal bloat in current dollars.

CPI/Inflation only accounts for 7.5:1 of that bloat.

We can fully account for 15:1, based on population growth and inflation, not 38:1

JFK's 100B would be $1500B/yr today. That is $2.3T/yr over and above JFK's level of federal overburden...over half of which was for defense.

Medicare: $3B in 1966. Apply same factor of 15 for CPI/population = $45B today. Actual amount spent on Medicare today is more than that by over a factor of 10:1.

If we eliminate 100% of defense today, and 100% of MEDICARE, then we would barely be half way adjusted back between today's nearly $3800B and JFK's fully adjusted $1500B.

If it has been a while, take a ride up or down I-95 into DC. Bring along your visible opulence meter, and watch it rise. You can't hide that much money and 'prosperity' being bled from others. After all those E-1s have paid the price at the pointy end of the stick and return to try and find jobs in their hometowns in Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Tennesse, Pennsylvania, Ohio and so on, it isn't they who parlay their positions at the broad bottom of the command pyramid into a soft-landing at a Lockheed Martin or General Dynamics or Harris or Raytheon or SAIC or the hundreds of flag waving opportunistic feeders. The soft-landing assembly line running from government managed program offices into the private sector is the smoothest running and most well oiled construct known to mankind. What goes on in government contracting is unsightly and unimaginable except by those who do it for a prosperous living.