Here’s the problem: Nobody knows which federal programs are on the chopping block.

The bills for the most part avoid targeting specific programs for cuts. Instead, they set spending caps that would limit growth over a ten-year period.

But which hard choices will have to be made? Cuts to social programs? The Food and Drug Administration? Foreign aid?

Those decisions would be put off until sometime in the future. For now, lawmakers would be agreeing to only a top-line number.