Entitlement spending is a long-term problem and needs to be dealt with, but do you think the sudden rash of deficits over the last few years was due to the introduction of new entitlement spending? The economy got wrecked, a wrecked economy means less revenue, and that’s the main source of the huge deficits. Most of the new spending was an attempt to keep the economy from spiralling even worse. Fixing the economy will solve the bulk of the current deficit crisis. To act as if we must act RIGHT NOW to eliminate the deficit is to assume that now is the new normal, and we’ll never recover to our previous level of economic activity.
It’s interesting that the only discussion of where to make cuts are to democratic initiatives - the union busting in wisconsin only targeted democratic-leaning unions, no one will talk about military spending, etc. So essentially the situation is - the republicans wreck the economy, and then say oh shit we don’t have any money, we’re gonna have to kill democratic programs! Double whammy of awesome.