I helped balance the federal budget in the 1990s – here's just how hard it will be for the GOP to achieve that same rare feat
- Written by Linda J. Bilmes, Daniel Patrick Moynihan Senior Lecturer in Public Policy and Public Finance, Harvard Kennedy School

Kevin McCarthy reportedly promised many things to Republican hardliners en route to clinching his job as speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. One of them was a “balanced budget” in...