Watching the flames

It’s far easier to just let the Bush tax cuts expire, all of them, and reach the $4 trillion deficit target that way. Now maybe there are some things that, piece by piece, you could substitute out in exchange: defense cuts for middle-class tax cuts, for example. But that’s essentially PAYGO. Just sticking to the CBO baseline, rather than this opulent tax reform plan that makes no sense in reality, seems preferable.