"Show me the Spending!" Nice interactive illustrating the requested spending in the Presidents latest budget proposal

(HT: David Mayer for the link)

The NYTIMES has a terrific interactive breakdown of the spending side of  Presidents budget proposal for Fiscal Year 2013.  I encourage you to go HERE and look at all four graphics. If you click on a "bubble" you will see the category or spending, how much is proposed, and if it is increasing or decreasing.

Source: NYTIMES interactives

This graphic above shows Mandatory (on left) vs Discretionary (on right) spending.  You can't see it here, but if you go to the website and click on the LARGEST circles on the left you will see they represent Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and Interest Paid on the National Debt.  Those three things pale in comparison to any other part of mandatory spending.

National Defense is considered discretionary spending and is represented by the THREE largest  bubbles on the right.

All these programs are the "third rail" of politics---don't touch or you will die (politically).

So, you can easily see the mandatory programs are the "elephants in the budget room".  Instead of addressing the elephants, the political class of both parties seem to just fighting over who is going to (and not going to) run between the legs of the elephants to save the tiny budget mice. 

Wouldn't it be better to get the elephant under control and not wreak so much havoc on the poor little "budget mice" to give them a break?...Just sayin'....

Note: I add one more of the graphs below showing the breakdown of spending by major category.  The issues are obvious. How much conversation do you hear about this?