Fiscal Co-Chair Simpson: No Progress on Defict Without Tackling Entitlements, Defense

There will be no progress on cutting the mammoth budget deficit, projected at $1.5 trillion for this year, if Congress is unwilling to tackle entitlements and defense spending, says former Republican Wyoming Sen. Alan Simpson. The politically popular moves to curb the deficit are trivial, The Hill quotes the co-chairman of the president’s National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform as saying.

President Barack Obama and fiscal commission Co-Chair Alan Simpson. (Getty Images)

If a politician pledges to eviscerate from the budget all earmarks, waste, fraud and abuse, foreign aid, and congressional pensions, Simpson told CNN: “That's just a sparrow belch in the midst of the typhoon. That's about 6, 8, 10 percent of where we are.”

Instead, he said, politicians must look to make cuts in the big four — Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and defense.

“Anybody giving you anything different than that, you want to walk out the door, stick your finger down your throat, and give them the green weenie," Simpson said.