For the deficit hawks in Congress, the next few months are going to offer a rare and valuable opportunity: They can do nothing and bring the federal budget much closer to balance. At issue is the expiration of the Bush tax cuts. If allowed to lapse, they'd improve the deficit outlook by about $4 trillion over the next 10 years -- and more after that. As Joshua Gordon writes, "the difference in the publicly held debt resulting from [extending the tax cuts] represents an amount of money larger than the country's total economic output in 2035. Debt held by the public would be 187 percent of GDP instead of the 79 percent it would be under current law."