In a useful exercise, David Frum lists the four budget priorities the Republicans will have to reconcile:
1) No tax increase
2) No defense cuts
3) No Medicare cuts
4) Rapid move to a balanced budget.Obviously it’s impossible to meet all four of those commitments. It would be difficult enough to combine #4 with even two of the first three.
My own view is that we keep commitments #1 and #4 by jettisoning the middle two, though until unemployment falls further my preference would be to focus on making the debt levels more sustainable rather than achieving a balanced budget per se. How about you?
