Commentary The federal budget has degenerated into a farcical charade. Today, the federal government’s explicit debt is careening toward the unfathomable sum of $29 trillion. (Let’s set aside for now the much larger number that comprises Uncle Sam’s unfunded liabilities). The sums involved are mind-boggling. I wrote a few months ago about the trivialization of money, but even “trivialization” doesn’t quite capture the surreal quality of federal finance. The so-called “budget” seems like something from a fantastical dreamworld, unmoored from rational economic considerations. Political considerations have eclipsed economic considerations—a folly that serves special interests in the short run, but penalizes the general interest in the long run—and so the federal debt continues to balloon. Many members of Congress have no grasp of economic reality. Like the fictitious mediocrities who devised public policy in Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged,” their real-life counterparts in Washington today show no comprehension of a crucial economic …