Why Cutting Spending Will be hard

David Sirota: Idiocracy By the Numbers: New Data Show Many Americans Have No Idea They Receive Government Benefits: "According to new data crunched by Cornell University's Suzanne Mettler, large numbers of Americans who receive benefits from government social programs nonetheless tell pollsters they 'have not used a government social program.' And when I mean large, I mean large. For example, a majority of those who have received federally subsidized student loans, 44 percent of Social Security beneficiaries and 40 percent of G.I. bill recipients say they have not used a government social program."