It's not rocket science. Every person who ever had to stretch an income to meet expenses understands how you manage money.
But the politicians have developed mental gridlock. They continue to pander to voters' baser instincts rather than do what is responsible.
At the top of the list of panderers are the Newtonian revolutionaries in the House of Representatives. The new Republican majority there -- and in the Senate to a lesser extent -- wants to stand logic on its head by cutting the budget and cutting taxes. The result, whether Newt Gringrich & Co. want to hear it or not, will be bigger deficits.
No. 2 on the list of shame is Bill Clinton, who abandoned his principled stand of his first two presidential years to make shameless political points by torching the drive to bring the federal deficit under control. He's now in a bidding war with the Newtonians -- a move bound to add red ink to the federal debt.
It's insanity. If you were $200 (not to mention $200 billion) in debt, would you rush out and increase your children's allowances? Or would you first cut out discretionary expenses, hold a flea market, scrimp wherever possible and erase that debt?
Not the Newtonians and Clintonians. They'd rather mortgage our country's future for instant political gratification.
The irony is that public opinion polls consistently show Americans want the deficit brought under control far more than they want immediate tax relief. It's that lesson everyone learns while living from paycheck to paycheck: Get your bills paid off before you give yourself an expensive treat.
But the Republican mantra seems to be that it's possible to fool voters into believing they can have both budget cuts and tax cuts simultaneously. It has even reached Annapolis, where House Republicans -- though not Senate Republicans -- want to risk the state's well-being for the sake of tax cuts.
The Annapolis scheme is identical to what Ellen R. Sauerbrey proposed in last year's campaign for governor: cut taxes 6 percent a year for four years and pay for it by shrinking the budget. It sounds so simple. But as the GOP numbers show, it is a deeply flawed plan.
Here's the rub: Most of the $334 million the House Republicans want to cut out of the budget amounts to one-time-only savings. They aren't proposing enough in permanent reductions to pay for even the first year's tax cut.
What happens in Year Two, when $440 million more has to be found to finance the tax cut? Or Year Four, when $880 million has to be cut?
But that's in the future, and House Republicans, unlike Mrs. Sauerbrey, are realistic enough to admit that you have to take this one year at a time.
OK, let's take Year One. In order to make the GOP tax-cut plan work, the state's economic-development efforts would be slashed; a major anti-crime initiative would be eliminated, a program to keep dropouts in school would be laid waste, a program to help schools with vast numbers of poor students would be annihilated and money set aside for a Baltimore football stadium would be seized.
A cynic might suggest these Republicans are now on record against business development, against crime-fighting, against better schools and against an NFL team for Baltimore.
The $25 million cut for the economic development "sunny-day fund" capsulizes the tortured GOP position. The Republicans, historically the party of business, are coming out against business expansion. As one GOP leader put it, this money -- to help keep or lure companies to Maryland -- amounts to "welfare for business."
Yet the lack of a big sunny-day fund is why Maryland lost out on the Starbucks coffee plant last year. Without economic incentives, a McCormick spice plant will be moving to Pennsylvania. Other states with big economic-development incentive funds use that money liberally to win jobs. They consider this money to be an investment, not "welfare."
A lower personal income tax won't win these new plants for Maryland. Businesses -- unless a headquarters relocation is involved -- first want to know about corporate taxes and government incentives. There won't be any financial incentives if the GOP has its way.
The most troubling aspect of the Maryland House GOP plan is the move to ransack the state's "rainy-day fund." This is money set aside in case of emergencies. In the last recession, this fund proved essential -- and far too small. Bond-rating houses agree a $250 million fund, as the governor has proposed, is headed in the right direction. The Republicans want to cut that total in half.
This would leave the state little room to compensate for the big cuts that seem likely in federal funds. It leaves little room to rescue the state if the local economy falls back into recession. It's a high-risk option for political gain.
So far, Governor Glendening has resisted the urge to join the tax-cut bidding war. He said again last week he won't do it. But House Speaker Casper R. Taylor wants him to deflate the Republican drive by backing a symbolic tax cut this year as part of a multi-year tax reduction. Some gubernatorial aides concur. But there's no huge groundswell of citizen support for such a move.
Bill Clinton made a major mistake in caving in to pressure this year and abandoning his deficit-reduction drive. So far, Mr. Glendening has learned from that misstep.
E9 Barry Rascovar is editorial-page director of The Sun.