A politicians' goal is to get reelected. If not, their party will quickly replace them with someone who has that goal. Budget cuts, when they are made, are do

A politicians' goal is to get reelected. If not, their party will quickly replace them with someone who has that goal. Budget cuts, when they are made, are done in the places where they will minimise the political damage to the party making the cuts. It's not that nobody can come up with saving money in the bureaucracy, military&secret services, government subsidies, etc. It's just that they are costly in terms of political power and therefore not discussed at all. And the easiest things to slash are things your own voters don't care about and the easiest taxes to increase those that your voters don't pay. I doubt that any kind of economic thinking goes into these decisions.