David Leonhardt asks a trick question...

...on the front page of the Times this morning (my emphasis):

If Congress takes no action in coming years, what will happen to the budget deficit?

It will shrink — and shrink a lot. This simple fact may offer the best hope for deficit reduction.

As federal law currently stands, some significant tax increases are set to take effect in coming years. The most important is the scheduled expiration of the Bush tax cuts at the end of 2012.
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This change, by itself, would solve about 75 percent of the deficit problem over the next five years.