> For much of the past decade, congress could have removed the entire discretionary budget (yes, including the military) and still had a deficit.
Two fiscal years in the past decade (2010 and 2011) had deficit exceeding discretionary spending. That's not "much of the past decade". (The highest deficit was in 2009, but discretionary spending was actually higher.)
> The deficit is driven by social security, medicare, and medicaid. If you want to balance the budget, you have to reform those.
The deficit is driven by a shortfall of revenue vs. spending. Even if your portrayal of the spending side was accurate, ignoring the revenue side is not. If you want to balance the budget [0], you probably shouldn't ignore one side of the balance.
[0] The question of whether you should want to is one which is rarely addressed directly, merely assumed.
Two fiscal years in the past decade (2010 and 2011) had deficit exceeding discretionary spending. That's not "much of the past decade". (The highest deficit was in 2009, but discretionary spending was actually higher.)
> The deficit is driven by social security, medicare, and medicaid. If you want to balance the budget, you have to reform those.
The deficit is driven by a shortfall of revenue vs. spending. Even if your portrayal of the spending side was accurate, ignoring the revenue side is not. If you want to balance the budget [0], you probably shouldn't ignore one side of the balance.
[0] The question of whether you should want to is one which is rarely addressed directly, merely assumed.