Here is a Wonkblog article by Zachary A. Goldfarb about why taxes have to eventually rise on the middle class.  Whether or not you buy that premise, look at this:

"It is too soon to declare the U.S. economy in decline. But U.S. spending on infrastructure, research and development and early childhood education is not a source of optimism. On some of these measures, the United States has already fallen behind; on others, it is at risk of doing so. The only way to do better is invest more. And to pay for that, you either need to cut a substantial amount of spending elsewhere—Social Security, Medicare and the safety net are the biggest sources of spending—or raise taxes."

A curious statement!  Social Security, Medicare and the safety net are the "biggest sources of spending."

Why lump three unrelated things together and call them the "biggest sources" of anything?

The largest individual item in the federal budget is "defense" at about 22% of the entire budget.  I'd be sympathetic to the argument, by the way, that "defense" is not really a single line item as it encompasses a great many things.  But, if I wanted to play Goldfarb's game, I could probably make the "defense" bit of the pie even larger by lumping in all law enforcement or even public money used for scientific research that may have defense related uses. Heck, Veterans Affairs and Homeland Security are not in the "Defense" bucket!

Or, I could take a whole bunch of really puny budget items and lump them together and then complain that NASA, arts funding, unpaid bills by Cliven Bundy and the Environmental Protection Agency and say, "look how much we're spending on this!"

It's silliness.  If Goldfarb wants to target the biggest line item in the budget it is defense.

Goldfarb then discusses paid family leave, a nice progressive thing that the government could provide its citizens so that we are treated at least as well as people in peer nations. But the cost, he gasps:

"A program of national family leave would likely cost more than $20 billion a year. You could pay for it with new taxes on the wealthy -- for instance raising income tax rates beyond the current 39.6 percent threshold."

Some Democrats, he says, want to charge everybody making over $50,000 a year an extra $100 a year in taxes for the privilege.  I am fine paying that.  But why are we making such a huge deal about paying for a $20 billion a year program? The total federal budget is $3.6 trillion a year.  Were family leave in the budget right now its pie chart sliver would be 0.55%.

Total costs for developing the Lockheed Martin F-35 tactical fighter bomber flying death machine TIE fighter? $1.1 trillion over the projected 55 year life of the fighter.  I can't believe my luck but $1.1 trillion divided by $20 billion is 55.  So, cancel the stupid fighter and you can have your paid family leave, I will keep my $100 and the budget is unaffected.

How did Goldfarb miss that?  By not looking at the actual largest budget item and instead by lumping all "social" programs together and calling them the problem.