In a new article, “How Can Anyone Take This Seriously?”, Independent Institute Research Editor Anthony Gregory slams the absurd squabbling in Congress over 2% of the federal deficit while the U.S.’s gigantic spending and debt crisis plunges onward.

The U.S. is running deficits somewhere between one and one and a half trillion dollars, and in Washington the Republicans and Democrats are still squabbling over petty change. The Republicans are pushing $40 billion in “cuts” as a compromise to prevent a “government shutdown.” It is hard to keep track of the exact partisan positions, but this is a few tens of billions more in “cuts” than the Democrats want. (I put “cuts” in quotes because an actual cut would be a reduction in overall spending, whereas these appear to just be “cuts” in the Washington sense—that is, a reduction from the amount they would prefer to spend, which is always more every year.)

In any event, tens of billions of dollars would not seem to matter, given the problem at hand. These clowns are all fighting over about 2% of the deficit.

U.S. politicians could outright close the deficits if they really wanted to, but this would require tackling entitlements and war, which no one wants to do. So all the focus is on the other programs whose costs do not even add up to the deficit.

It goes without saying that the administration and his party are shameless spendthrifts who are either bent on spending this country right into the ground, or are too clueless to recognize that that’s what they’re doing. Either the malice or incompetence involved rises to levels of gross criminality. . . .

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