Cutting the Deficit Is Easy—It’s Just Unpopular

Wall Street Journal: “The federal deficit reached $1.8 trillion, or 6.4% of GDP, last fiscal year, a record outside of war, recession or emergency. Musk and Trump have promised to attack it by cutting federal spending. One simple step would be to stop adding to it. And yet last week neither stood in the way of Congress’s largess. Musk posted in favor of the money for disaster victims and farmers. The vice president-elect, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, co-sponsored the Social Security expansion.”

“The reason is obvious: Spending is popular with voters and both parties. This is why commissions, think tanks and earnest outsiders have been papering Washington for decades with ideas to cut spending and the deficit—and mostly gotten nowhere.”