http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_Monument_Syndrome
Good link, good definition.
We're seeing the same thing now in the budget process regarding benefits - the only thing they're addressing as an "entitlement" to curtail are a person's earned Social Security retirement benefits, although SS
today is not part of the deficit
today. It's a visible and popular program that promises to deliver some benefit to every working person who survives long enough to retire. And proposals to curtail SS serve to draw people's attention away from all the irrelevant, unnecessary, and sometimes downright harmful other cr@p that tax money is being wasted on.
But you notice,
nobody on either side of the aisle is talking about curtailing handouts (I refuse to call them "entitlements") - by which I mean all the various welfare programs that pay UNEARNED benefits to tens of millions of slackers to the tune of over
one trillion dollars per year . . . a figure eerily close to the annual deficit. (And nobody is talking about how "immigration reform" and "a path to citizenship" will swell the ranks of those eligible for these handouts.)
As for the military . . . while flight time & readiness are being sacrificed, you can bet that procurement
from companies in select congressional districts will not be affected, even if it's for mohair, spats, and replacement parts for Willys Jeeps.