Is it basically impossible for the government to cut spending in this day and age?

Well, it is true our govt thinks that way. But no...one way or another those programs could be cut. Unfortunately, the problem is this: The left wont cut the programs because that's where their voter base comes from, and the right wont cut them because they are afraid of making those people mad, but wont raise rates on the rich. It's a broken system...but not systemic.

it's politically difficult, but not impossible.

in fact, we're going to do it sooner or later. My suspicion is that later will triumph over sooner and we'll merrily careen down the road to insolvency in about 2020 -- at which point the debt markets will reject any further government borrowing and we'll either have a bout of hyper inflation or government spending will be cut to the bone no matter the cost to social service spending.

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The effective truth is that no government can tax its people beyond some poorly defined limit. You see this in Greece today. Higher taxes there aren't producing more revenue -- what they're producing is more tax defiance and outright refusal to report income or file the forms and pay. The Greek government is going to have to cut spending simply because they can't effectively raise more revenue. [Imho, that's going to require them to either leave the euro and devalue their currency or have an across the board reduction in government wage levels and pensions.]

I believe this same thing is going to end up happening in the US. Tax revenues won't go up despite higher tax rates and thus, when no more debt can be sold at any realistic price, spending will be cut and it will be cut by slashing government wages, pensions, Social Security, and Medicare/Medicaid etc. Those areas will be cut because they're the only ones that can be cut and produce enough savings.

I wish the Congressional "supercommittee" would get off the dime and recommend a 20% across the board wages and pensions cut for all Federal employees and contractors. That would be a serious recommendation and, under the rules, Congress would have to vote up or down on it as presented.

That's the reason the Federal Government hands out all of this money, its used to make us feel dependent on it. If we feel dependent on something, we will fight to keep it. For example, the FDA. The Fed knows that the American people feel dependent on it to keep us safe... so the Fed now has an excuse to print money to fund the FDA, and it also has another reason for the people to rely on the Fed and to be dependent on it. Its used to control Americans. We also pay taxes to the Fed... Who is the Fed??? Did you know the Fed is owned by England and the Saudi Royal Family? Whoever owns the Fed owns America, so now were dependent on other countries to keep us safe.

The Fed was never supposed to be apart of the United States Government. If we got rid of it, we could drastically improve our lives over time along with cutting massive amounts of spending. Trillions. Plus, we would really be free.

I think I'm a bit off subject now. Anyways, yes, we could drastically cut spending.

I think so...they are trying to cut the stuff that is insignificant in the whole scheme of things and ignoring the fact that Medicare, Social Security etc and Defense spending is out of control.

Yes if the resources are just sitting there why allow something called money to get in the way of helping.

It's not impossible but you're definitely gore some body's ox it's all a matter of whose.

Intelligent people could downsize government...we just don't have many in office.