Across-the-Board Cuts: Our Best Hope?

Across-the-board spending cuts are needed to fix the U.S. fiscal problem; unless they are enacted, special interests will win and the public at large will continue to be saddled with huge levels of public debt, according to Ivan Eland, director of the Independent Institute's Center on Peace & Liberty.

In his latest op-ed, Eland argues that the bloated U.S. military budget is one area that grows almost ceaselessly, due to domestic political concerns. "Weapons purchases are often welfare projects doled out to congressional districts and states with political clout," he writes. "In fact, unlike in the commercial market, defense contractors don't give subcontracts to the best subcontractors but spread them around the country to build political support, so that it is very difficult to kill weapons programs."

Pushing for across-the-board spending cuts, Eland argues, is the only strategy that could defeat the "iron triangle" of interests that succeed in fostering greater increases in public spending and debt. "If every program in the budget had to take a substantial and equal percentage cut," he continues, "the plan could be sold with the simple and honest phrase: 'In this dire time of record budget deficits, endangering the creditworthiness of the United States, everyone must sacrifice equally.'"