One of the biggest myths propagated by Washington’s professional politicians is the idea that balancing the federal budget requires some sort of superhuman political and budgetary wisdom. Both political parties are afflicted with this defeatist thinking. President Obama’s latest proposed federal spending blueprint is a depressing case in point. The Obama proposal assumes $47 trillion more spending, $1.9 trillion in new taxes and a national debt of $25.9 trillion — at the end of the decade. Things look somewhat better over in the Republican-controlled House, where the budget committee’s Road to Prosperity proposal cuts $4.4 trillion more from planned spending than the Obama budget, but only “puts the budget on the path to balance,” rather than eliminating annual deficits entirely.