The dirty secret is that the economy is so entangled with the government that any cut in spending will likely result in a recession/depression. No politician wants to have a hand in another recession. Fact is, the government has been propping up the economy since the recession of 08. The big insurance companies and big pharma all are on the government teet due to Medicare/Medicaid and the way they wrote Obamacare. The big box stores make tons off of SNAP and EBT. Tech companies and defense contractors are all tied in via DOD contracts. There’s many more examples out there but those are some big ones. If you are going to make significant cuts, you have to address the big dollar programs and thus those big companies will begin to layoff and downsize, thus the market will tank. Probably would need to institute a spending level freeze, pass sunset provisions for Social Security and the other unfunded liabilities, end tax loopholes, and pass reciprocal tariffs to try and get revenues to catch up to expenditures. Once that happens, you can start cutting without major upheaval.

That definitely won’t happen anytime soon. Frankly the political class (the ones with half a brain) know that there is no off ramp. They are going to grift as much as possible from the treasury so that when the dollar begins to tank, they can get out of dodge. Until that time, I’ll vote for the candidate who isn’t an incumbent and might at least be a vote against additional spending. Slowest path to the inevitable.