Well Said, Bernie Sanders!

[Jonathan Whatley]

G-Man, here's a question though.

If I'm hearing you right you have three main premises here:

Just face it, the FACT is that the "two unfunded wars" is a relatively small part of the total deficit.

FACT: the wars account for just a small fraction of the total deficit during the last ten years.

• The cost of the wars, one trillion dollars plus ongoing costs such as veteran's entitlements and debt service, is "relatively small" and "just a small fraction" of the total deficit.

• You disagree with hyperbole and "populist rhetoric," including attacking easy and unpopular targets like war spending.

• That said, your main targets are Republican and Democratic politicians especially in Congress. They're easy and unpopular targets and you're attacking them trenchantly.

What are the spending lines you disagree with?

If they add up to anything less than or near the 1.1 trillion dollars over the little over eight years between September 11, 2001 and the January 2010 release of the CBO report, they're "relatively small."

If you were furious at Sen. Sanders and those of us who tend to agree with him for bringing the wars up relatively high on our lists, well, you should be consistent with your own standard. If identifying a trillion dollar expense item high among a list of expense items is demagoging because a trillion is small in the scale of things, well, the domestic spending on roads or museums or Head Start programs or whatever that you're furious about and identify with the easy, unpopular target of members of Congress had better be very high too.

Fact is, put military, veterans', and Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid entitlement spending to the side, and isn't all discretionary "program" spending small relative to to the deficit?

So what would you support either by way of raising taxes or premiums, cutting spending on military, veterans', Social Security, Medicare and/or Medicaid lines, or some combination?

I ask this genuinely with an open mind. I'm a liberal Democrat, but I identify with a practical, thrift-minded and debt-shy tradition associated with Prairie progressivism. Think former Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold, a Democrat with some clearly liberal priorities and positions overall who was also one of the top-rated members of congress on anti-waste ratings; whatever you might think of his supporting to public spending on some priorities, he seemed to put a good amount of political capital into fiscal discipline and fighting waste on lines that he'd agree weren't high priorities for public spending.

So, let me know. I'm curious, I might be surprised and I might even agree with you: What do you think should be cut, or where do you think taxes or premiums should be increased, that wouldn't count as relatively small by your own criteria, on which you absolutely ripped Sen. Sanders and by implication those of us who agree with him to shreds for identifying spending on the wars high on our lists?

ETA: I absolutely agree with some increase in military and security spending since September 11, and swift and targeted action against its perpetrators and those who would follow.