Will we ever elect a president who truly wants smaller government and less spending?

Just what do those contributors of election funds want if nothing more than to have access to this countries coffers. Same with lobbyists, follow the money, there will never be such an animal as a president who cares anything but to skim money off of you hard earned backs. Then he gives it to those who can help him and his cohorts win reelection. Just watch our president elect and you'll see those same old faces at the trough. Just a thought from the Peoples Socialist Democratic Republic of Minnesota, home of the East German Socialist economic principles.

No, for many reasons. One reason is that a massive spending cut could only come from the public stating that some of what they spend should not be the government's responsibility. It's hard to even ask those questions: should we cut funding for interstate highways? Am I asking in the present time--where you could answer that it is better than spending it on something else, or am I asking more hypothetically--whether we should take that responsibility, along with many more, away from the federal government and leave them to the states or private companies?

America needs to make up it's mind what the responsibilites of the government are--but that's easier said than done. On many issues (military and science come to mind) the public doesn't have the knowledge to know what the country needs. It's easy to say 'cut one quarter of military spending' or 'quit funding studies of bear DNA in Montana and other such projects', but cutting either of those could seriously come back to bite us. Most of us have no idea what the effects of these kinds of policies would have if they were put into practice.

I think that a lot of politicians who campaign on lower spending get into office and realize that a lot of these programs are more essential than they realized. When you are on the outside, it's easy to say that the government doesn't need to spend 17 trillion a year. When you are in the hot seat, a lot of that stuff you called waste while campaigning starts to look more important. You see the military spending outrageous sums of money, but when it comes time to cut back their funds, you need to make sure you don't risk the country's security. When you use the 'scalpel' method in budget cuts, you actually spend money figuring out what you can cut! When you use the 'hatchet' method, you cut things that people rely on the governemnt to provide.

It's similar to trying to root out misappropriation. Your choices are to spend a fortune in red tape to make sure no one rips off the government, or to save money, streamline procedures, and then find that someone was able to fit their hand in the cookie jar. There's just no easy answers--and once politicians get into the job, they figure that out.

Please tell me what you would like to cut, and I'll find 1000 people who DON'T want that cut.

I doubt it, unfortunately.

No, is very unlikely unless U.S. is bankrupt.