According to the Peterson Foundation, the U.S. national debt has now surpassed $36 trillion, with interest costs exceeding $1.8 billion per day. Conservatives are hopeful that incoming President Donald Trump’s new “Department of Government Efficiency,” aka “DOGE,” will find ways to cut bloated government spending, freeing up scarce resources for better uses and reducing the massive federal budget deficits that threaten America’s future prosperity.
But if history is a reliable guide, today’s budget-cutters should expect a massive media counterattack. It was 30 years ago this month when a new Republican Congress took office after decades of Democratic rule. One of their goals was to curtail the reckless growth of government spending, but liberal journalists greeted the effort with hysterical headlines about “cruelty,” “suffering,” and a…
