“New Zealand got rid of a big budget deficit in the 1990s with a five-year spending freeze.”

“Canada also got rid of red ink that decade with a five-year period where spending grew by an average of only 1 percent per year. And Ireland slashed its deficit in the late 1980s by 10 percentage points of GDP with a four-year spending freeze.”

Cato’s Dan Mitchell, explaining how we can stop using our credit card so dang much just by buying used cars instead of new ones, and camping at state parks instead of renting four-star hotel rooms.

I’m stealing his chart:

It’s funny, you know? I thought “austerity” was supposed to be…I dunno…hard.