Different year, same shit

Often I'm glad to see that some things never change; unfortunately, stupidity is among those things. House Republicans, led by incoming Speaker John Boehner, are pledging to cut $100 billion from domestic spending over the next year.

I understand the concern about spending money we don't have, and the all-to-common rhetoric of budget cuts doesn't piss me off nearly as much as the following, quoted from The New York Times:

House Republican leaders are so far not specifying which programs would bear the brunt of budget cutting, only what would escape it: spending for the military, domestic security and veterans.

I'd say it's also a fair bet that social security and medicare will go largely untouched as well, unless the GOP plans on committing political suicide. According to the Pew Research Center, Republicans and Tea Partiers likely rode into office on a wave of older voters. Take away those voters' benefits and that same wave will carry them back out to sea.

If GOP members avoid cuts from the military, domestic security and veterans as they say they will -- and from medicare and social security as they likely will -- just over 50 percent of total federal spending will go untouched. While programs beyond these five areas are numerically greater, they are fiscally smaller.

Bottom line: this is just grandstanding. If Republicans were serious about reducing spending, they would address the real issues, and their deafening silence during the health care debate suggests they won't.