I think everyone understands that cuts are needed. What gets people up in arms is that the cuts that are proposed seem to always be the ones that affect those in our communities with the smallest voices - we cut educating funding, services to village communities, services to the elderly and services to the destitute while retaining and at times increasing the amount of money that we give back to those with the biggest voices - big business and the very lawmakers who are supposed to be working for us. So, yes, there will be, to use your term, whining, when the cuts that the lawmakers propose are the cuts that hurt them least and their constituents the most. 

"The cornerstone of democracy rests on the foundation of an educated electorate." - Thomas Jefferson. At every turn our lawmakers seem to be doing all they can to undercut the availability of education. 

"A society will be judged on the basis of how it treats its weakest members" ~Pope John Paul II. how will we be judged?