I sympathize with Stan on this one, but I must side with Andrew.

The next President of the United States will face a fiscal mess, which will sharply curtail his options on the war and on the economy.  Fulfilling some campaign promises quickly will be required in the first 100 days to establish credibility.  If energy prices don't ease, the economy may stay weak, requiring more fiscal stimulus.  No matter who is president, most of the Bush tax cuts will be extended, the AMT may be abolished (I hope!), and a lot of high priority items will insure that we run large deficits for the foreseeable future.

That doesn't mean we should forget about balancing the budget.  The trick is to promise to balance it eventually.  Waiting for good times to balance the budget quickly simply doesn't work.  It takes a long time to establish the culture of deficit reduction on Capitol Hill.  It takes a long time for deficit reduction policies to bear enough fruit that more of the same becomes possible.  In 1981, we passed the largest tax cuts in U.S. history to that point, and, in 1982, we immediately began closing tax loopholes and shaving spending.  Deficit reduction took another step with Gramm-Rudman-Hollings in 1985 and again in 1987, but we didn't do the heavy lifting until 1990 and again in 1993.

Even when the deficit is huge and needs to expand, there are always ineffective and wasteful tax and spending programs that can be jettisoned.  Large agricultural subsidies to large corporations make no sense when food prices are at record highs.  Large energy subsidies to large oil companies make no sense when oil prices and profits are at record highs.  Spending 16% of GDP on health care with no discernable improvement in health outcomes compared to when we spent much less makes no sense.  Subsidizing insurance for flood and fire prone areas just encourages development that should occur elsewhere.  We've just discovered large pools of offshore tax evasion that should be pursued no matter what.  When we bail out large entities, like Bear Stearns and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, we should protect taxpayers by giving them warrants or other shares in future profits as compensation.  The list of sensible things to do no matter what fiscal condition we're in is quite long and should be pursued.

The next president should pursue important priorities while keeping a tight rein on as much spending and tax policy as possible.  One thing I learned on the Senate Budget Committee in the 1980s, it's a lot easier to go after a wide range of spendng cuts and tax loopholes than it is to go after a few.  Every deficit reduction measure is subject to intense lobbying.  The more deficit reduction proposals, the less lobbying can be concentrated on a single proposal.  The more you ask for initially, the more you get. 

The next president might also be well advised to set an overall percentage spending increase limit on entitlements, on domestic discretionary spending, and on defense spending.  That would force the government to set priorities.  That in itself is a very important part of the game.

The American public understands the need to balance the budget a lot better than its elected officials do.  As long as they perceive a basic sense of fairness about how deficit reduction is pursued, they will support it.  They understand the heavy debts we're piling up on their children.  They understand that the world's leading powers have historically declined because they couldn't stop spending, mostly on wars.  They understand what everyone in Washington says, but does little about -- the path we're on is unsustainable.  It's not too late to change it, but it will take a long time.  Let's get started.