He's not wrong. If you aren't going to raise revenue by raising taxes, you have to make cuts to those programs. I'm using the numbers from the current FY to de

He's not wrong. If you aren't going to raise revenue by raising taxes, you have to make cuts to those programs. I'm using the numbers from the current FY to demonstrate how severe the cuts have to be right now. https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/national-deficit/ https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/natio... Current deficit (time of writing) is about $839.5 billion for the FY. https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/federal-spending/ https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/feder... $502 billion : Social Security $368 billion : Medicare $334 billion : Defense $322 billion : Interest $321 billion : Health (covers a lot, but Medicaid is a high percentage of that) $218 billion : Income Security $139 billion : Veterans Benefits & Services The rest adds up to $232 billion or so What are you going to cut if you want to save $839.5 billion from all of these categories? If you entirely cut each of Health, Income, VA, and the rest you only get to the target (and then some) with $910 billion saved. But in the process you completely eliminated all welfare programs (outside Medicare and Social Security) and VA benefits along with a lot of other things people might revolt over. Realistically none of those will ever see a 100% cut, let's say of all that money 50% of it can be cut (may entirely eliminate some departments, and leave others more intact like VA). You can cut $455 billion before touching Defense, Medicare, and Social Security. You're still $384.5 billion short, and that's more than you'd get from cutting Defense entirely. You still have to touch Medicare and Social Security to hit the target of a balanced budget. ----------- All that said, if you're willing to raise taxes the cuts can be less severe to achieve a balanced budget. If you cut taxes, the cuts have to be more severe.