We Just Can't Cut Any More From the "Defense" Budget

Last week, Congressional Democrats were blindsided by newly-confirmed Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, who basically nixed any further cuts to military spending, and demanded that lawmakers trim from programs like Medicare and raise taxes to reduce future deficits.

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So Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) called on President Obama to repudiate Panetta.

Obama did precisely the opposite in his White House speech Monday. "Our challenge is the need to tackle our deficits over the long term last week we reached an historic agreement -- reached an agreement that will make historic cuts to defense and domestic spending," Obama said. "But there's not much further that we can cut in either of those categories. What we need to do now is combine those spending cuts with two additional steps: tax reform that will ask those who can afford it to pay their fair share and modest adjustments to health care programs like Medicare."

  TPM

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A few "modest" cuts to Medicare and "like" programs, and we'll have this whole thing patched up.