Did Obama say that Medicare is the biggest contributor to the deficit?

[Igel]

35. When you look at a budget, the amounts are fungible.

If you spend $300 billion, that's $300 billion. You can claim it's the first $300 billion spent and covered by taxes or you can claim that it's entirely funded by borrowing. The point's specious when made that way. Note that DOD is around $700 billion. The deficit for 2013, using really rosey numbers, was $900 billion. With the new tax cuts, it's going to go up a few hundred billion. Erase the DOD, and you'd half the deficit. It would be only $200-300 billion or so higher than the peak deficit in the '00s.

The other way is to look at increases. If you had a budget was was in balance (or, say, only $200 billion in the red) and suddenly you have a budget 5 years later that's $1 000 billion in the red, you ask, "Gee, what increased? What drove the deficit higher?"

Military spending's increased a bit. Medicare/Medicaid's increased far more. It's driving the deficit to a greater extent than current military spending.