Are balanced budgets possible in democracies?

“We all know what to do,” moaned Jean-Claude Juncker, then prime minister of Luxembourg. “We just don’t know how to get re-elected after we’ve done it.”

Sure enough, Mr. Juncker was afterwards thrown out by the Grand Duchy’s voters. Luckily for him, he was promptly appointed as president of the European Commission, one of the most powerful posts in the world, where he gets to combine executive and legislative power without having to worry about the electorate. You can see why he might not be wild about representative government. As he sternly told Greek voters at their recent election, “There can be no democratic choice against the [EU] treaties.”