Targeting "entitlements" as a universal fix ignores both the fiscal math and the human costs. Healthcare makes up the lion's share of that spending; cutting it just shifts uncompensated care burdens onto hospitals and inflates private premiums. Cutting programs like SNAP and WIC means pulling food support from children, which causes long-term economic damage.

If the goal is deficit reduction through spending cuts, policy needs to evaluate actual economic ROI. Programs like nutritional and income supports have positive fiscal multipliers, which is why blunt austerity measures trigger negative feedback loops and contract growth.

Spending cuts have a place, but treating entitlements as a slush fund without accounting for the economic return or impact on people isn’t a productive policy proposal.

>Healthcare makes up the lion's share of that spending;

I heard US healthcare, rather famously, spends more per capita than any country in the world, despite still being rather terrible. Maybe the solution is actually reforming it in an European way (including universal free healthcare)? Your other points are very interesting to me, especially negative feedback loops of austerity - I never thought about that before.