Let's say you were a Republican member of Congress with a sincere desire to craft a federal budget that would achieve balance by the end of the decade.
That's a noble goal! Balancing the budget wouldn't pay down the $31 trillion national debt, of course, but it would at least stop adding to it. There's just one small issue, your advisers tell you. Well, three issues, actually. You can't cut spending on the military (including veterans programs) or entitlement programs, and you can't advocate for letting the 2017 Trump tax cuts expire. That's sacred ground, they say, and suggesting any of those three ideas will end with you getting hoisted out of office by pitchfork-carrying voters, a loud-mouthed primary challenger, and/or the angry ghost of Ronald Reagan.
