Pho has gotten so expensive over the years.

yeah

I don't know where you live, but if you're ever near Little Saigon in Orange County, California, right off the 22 fwy at Westminster Ave and Brookhurst, there is a place called Pho Vie. I don't think I've spent more than 12 dollars for 2 bowls of pho + soda chanh. There are so many Pho places around the area though, it can be very easy to mistake the spot.

It's tough sometimes to find 5 dollar pho that's actually really really good -- but PLEASE never spend more than 20 dollars for 2 bowls of pho. Vietnamese food isn't supposed to be expensive. Sort of a thing.

I live in Austin, Texas. Unfortunately for my Bahn and Pho addictions, Austin is sort of a high priced area for Vietnamese food. Back in the 90's, you could could get it cheap and plentiful in the few locations that served it; now with the foodies and all the transplants there are tons of places, but they are all expensive.

Houston is still pretty cheap because it is saturated, so when I am down there I can score good, reasonably priced Vietnamese food.

To be fair some of those programs should be eliminated. In the big picture these table scrap spending issues.

Homeless need food and shelter more than I need PBS or GOV funded arts programs.

Americans need to work longer before opting for social security.

Our defense spending does need to be cut.

Our national debt does need to be lowered.

WE need not to be fighting if /when defenses cutting / social security adjustments issues come up.

Death panels and throwing grandma off the cliff scare tactics need to stop.

I suppose, but as you say, they are table scraps of money for all the good they do.

Homeless people should be getting money from Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) (aka welfare) but that money has, in a bi-partisan way, been misappropriated and the broad language of the law signed in 96 basically let states do whatever the fuck they want with that cash. $16.5 billion is spent on stupid bullshit like dance parties to help out shitty marriages when it should be doing what that money is named for.

see: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/moneybox/2016/06/_welfare_money_often_isn_t_spent_on_welfare.html

Point being, $445 million < 16.5 billion And I argue there is spending happening that contributes a lot less to society than PBS, NPR, etc. do.

That TANF fund is just one example of a program that's pulling down billions and dumping it, unsurprisingly, into the pockets of for-profit companies that are more than happy to scoop up TANF dollars or any other funds the Federal Government throws at them.

Also, Big Bird.

The most interesting graph happens at roughly 4:38. 3.7 trillion dollars, made up of roughly 1/7th discretionary spending, 1/7th defense, and 5/7ths SS/Medi*/Interest.

The one philosophical holdout that I still appreciate about the GOP platform is generally smaller government. But for all they harp on that, they usually do jack shit to actually cut down on that total from the graph.

That huge 5/7ths portion is close to untouchable; or at least it would be political suicide to mess with any of that stuff. The only exception is the interest payments, which *do* have to be paid, but we could work to reduce the debt which would in turn reduce interest. How to do that? Raise taxes. And suddenly all the Republicans think it's a terrible idea.

That leaves the 1/5th from Defense and 1/5th from other Discretionary spending. To me, Defense is the obvious target. If you really want to tighten the belt and be fiscally conservative, do we actually NEED to spend all that on defense? Couldn't it be cut in half or even more drastically and we'd still easily be able to actually, you know, defend the country? But again, pretty much zero Republican interest in cutting Defense budget, unless you're a kooky fringe element like Ron Paul with zero intra-party backing.

So that leaves the 1/5th of Discretionary spending. And yeah, sometimes Republicans do actually make cuts here. At best, they cut "drop in the bucket" type stuff like mentioned in the video, with negligible effect on the budget and a loss of programs that are valued by some/many. At worst, you end up like KansasBrownbackistan, with zero budget for schools, etc.

That rift between party platform and actual action is the biggest reason that I tend to have *zero* interest in voting Republican for any national office, in spite of still being registered as a Republican. State offices (governor, state legislature, etc.) are slightly more palatable places to consider voting in an R, but not by much. I do think they tend to be good options for Local government offices, especially for more rural areas. On the other hand, D's tend to be much better at promoting things like Bond Issues for improving schools, maintaining infrastructure, etc.