Maggie's Farm

The HotAir editor noted:

"Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz also deserve their share of blame for promoting an expansion of military without subsequent cuts. The U.S. should have a military to protect itself, but when a country is over $18T in debt, the only way to grow the military is to either cut from other places or raise taxes. The latter isn’t something conservatives tend to support, nor should they. The former is something conservatives in government don’t do enough."

For a true conservative (or libertarian), the solution to balancing the budget while strengthening the military is obvious - eliminate the so called "non discretionary" budget items that (a) make up the majority of the budget, and (b) are not authorized by the US Constitution - Medicare/Medicaid and Social Security.

For a politician, the conservative solution is problematic. They all recognize that the entitlement programs are devouring the country (in economic terms, they are shrinking our production possibility frontier). Yet, they also recognize that accusations that they are "pushing granny off the cliff" will doom their political ambitions.