But it's fun to watch them squirm and posture.

The biggest sinkholes of spending – Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and the military – are the big problems. They constitute almost 70% of the Federal budget. If the deficit of $1.6 trillion were eliminated, which is 40% of the budget, there would have to be cuts in one or more of the big four. The politicians are not ready for that kind of Big Deal.

This is why the debate over the deficit is a sham. It is political theater. There is no majority in either political party to balance the enormous budget of the U.S. government. To do so would require a drastic shrinking of expenditures.

. . . The politicians have no intention of dealing with the #1 issue of the deficit: the size of the proposed deficits in relation to the available private capital required to finance them, year after year.

Unlike real theater, though, these "players" don't get to leave the stage this time. The audience just keeps growing by the hour and everyone's real curious how the play ends.

"Baloney." By Gary North, LewRockwell.com, 7/13/11 (emphasis added).