Lawmakers and those seeking to be lawmakers complain how high U.S. debt levels are and how much higher they will go if nothing changes.
But they've been focusing almost exclusively on squeezing savings from the smallest part of the federal budget: "discretionary" spending on defense and domestic programs, which fund everything from the military to national parks and museums to food safety to Head Start and research and development.
But that's not what's driving long-term debt to unsustainable levels.
In fact, within a decade, defense and domestic spending is on track to fall to its lowest level as a share of gross domestic product since 1962, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).
Meanwhile, lawmakers and candidates typically dodge dealing with the real debt drivers -- "entitlement" spending, which includes the major health-care programs (Medicare, Medicaid and insurance subsidies) as well as Social Security, and interest on the debt.
Within 20 years, CBO projects that entitlement spending plus interest will suck up virtually every tax dollar coming into the federal government, up from 65% of revenue today.
In some cases, lawmakers have chosen to slow the spending growth rate for discretionary programs.
But in other cases, there have been actual cuts.
For instance, the Army Corps of Engineers, the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Science Foundation now have less money in absolute terms than they did just a few years ago, according to the Bipartisan Policy Center.
The Environmental Protection Agency is operating with $2 billion less than it had in 2010.
And the Internal Revenue Service -- long a political punching bag -- is now operating with about $900 million less than it got six years ago.
As a result, that agency has lost more than 17,000 employees through attrition and its audit rates have dropped.
