It’s an article of faith in mainstream media discussions of the budget: Social Security and Medicare are the “entitlements” driving our debt problems. That’s not really true, but that’s overwhelmingly the starting point for these discussions. Occasionally, perhaps by accident, someone questions that assumption.

That’s what happened on NPR‘s Morning Edition on Monday (8/8/11), when Rep. Barney Frank (D.-Mass.) was interviewed by Steve Inskeep about, among other things, the entitlement burden.

Read what happened–or listen to the excerpt below: