Entitled to a better press corps

The LA Times's Joel Havemann and Maura Reynolds write "Budget Committee Chairman Judd Gregg of New Hampshire — is laying plans to institute a procedure that would make it harder for Democrats to block benefit cuts."

The procedure would allow the Republican-controlled House the ability to push through cuts in "entitlements" on a simple majority, and eliminate the risk of a filibuster.

Since then, the deficit has ballooned, to $412 billion last year. Gregg, who is new to the Budget Committee's chairmanship this year, said the chief culprit was the growth of the giant entitlement programs — so-called because they entitle people to federal benefits according to their age, income or some other characteristic.

A quick glance at the budget numbers shows why entitlements loom so large. The biggest, Social Security, will entitle the elderly and disabled this year to checks totaling about $510 billion, one-fifth of the federal budget [emphasis added]. Medicare benefits for the same groups will cost an additional $325 billion.

In comparison, the programs that Congress can enlarge or reduce annually in its regular spending bills are very small. Economic development grants to poor communities, a traditional target of budget cutters, will cost an estimated $4.6 billion this year. The government will spend about $1.2 billion this year to subsidize passenger railroad travel on Amtrak.

Is it too much to ask that reporters writing about the federal budget have enough background on the subject to allow them to point out that while SS may be one-fifth of the budget, the program represents zero-fifths of the federal deficit?