If you’re a dictator, that is. The New York Times has a fun silly thingy whereby you too can take a machete to the US budget deficit. It’s easy! My Cunning Plan even produces surpluses in both 2015 and 2030. 65% of my proposals are achieved by cutting spending; 35% by taxes. And I didn’t even use the Fantasy Catch-All of “capping Medicare growth”. I even let the Congress peeps keep their earmarks. Just for fun.
So, yes, balancing the budget is easy. Provided you never need to run for election yourself. No-one would win if they promised my, or anyone else’s, plan – at least not given the choices offered by the NYT.
It is, again, a problem of scale. In a continent-sized country of 300 million people, every interest is a powerful interest. We may agree that farm subsidies are a noxious boondoggle but it’s hardly surprising that farm states quite like them and are determined to keep them.
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