Comment by thrance

Social spending is redistributive, it reduces wealth inequalities. Shrink it and you make the actual issue worse. I guarantee you this 5% we recover wouldn't be used to balance the budget, but to grant another tax cut to the wealthy. And let's not even mention the consequences of cutting 1/20th of total social spending on human lives, this spending is not just a frivolous expense we can cut in when needed. We've been doing neoliberalism for 50 years, maybe it's time we cut our losses and find something better?