This is a Cato Special Podcast. I'm Caleb Brown. In his speech last night to Congress

President Trump promised big spending for the military for infrastructure and by not

talking about it much he promised continued big spending on

entitlements. Cato Institute Senior Fellow Michael Tanner says that looks an awful lot

like the spending priorities of George W Bush.

The big headline for libertarians and conservatives who are serious about spending across the board is that the one area where congressional Republicans

and Barack Obama agreed on spending restraint is the thing that Donald Trump wants to get rid of.

Big government, big spending conservatism is back with a vengeance.

The one sort of constant throughout the Trump's address was that he wanted to spend more money.

He wants to spend more money on the military.

He wants to spend more money on veterans.

He wants to build a wall.

He wants to spend more money on infrastructure.

Basically every problem the country faces, his answer was that we should spend more money

on it. The one thing he doesn't want to do anything with is changing of course entitlement

programs. He didn't bring them up at all. So how he's going to spend more money on everything,

leave entitlements unreformed, cut taxes, and still balance the

budget, that's real magic if he could pull it off.

Ron Wyden, Senator from Oregon shortly, either during the speech or shortly after it,

tweeted out, half our budget already goes to the military, and of course he posted a pie chart of just the discretionary federal spending.

So at least I think Democrats and Donald Trump can agree we need to leave entitlements

alone.

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