A Thousand Cuts

by Patrick Appel

Veronique de Rugy argues that cutting spending is not only possible and necessary but that it can be politically expedient:

Cutting public spending can seem challenging. Entitlementspending increases automatically in a recession and as thepopulation ages. Meanwhile, military actions in Afghanistan andIraq and the ongoing threat of terrorism all help lawmakers claimthat those parts of the budget are off limits. Lawmakers tend to bewary of spending reductions in general, as...