A Blueprint for Balance: A Federal Budget for 2017 — that’s the latest from The Heritage Foundation in the effort to present budget-cutting ideas for the federal government. It will take discipline, to be sure, and that’s in short supply in Washington. But eliminating the deficit isn’t rocket science, either:

> The Blueprint for Balance provides detailed recommendations for the annual congressional budget. Congress needs to drive down spending — including through reform of entitlement programs — to a balanced budget, while maintaining a strong national defense, and without raising taxes.

> While Congress cannot solve everything at once, it can and must take opportunities through the annual budget and appropriations process to make a down payment of putting the government’s finances back in order. They can do this by immediately reducing discretionary spending and taking meaningful steps to reduce mandatory spending by reforming those programs.

Repealing ObamaCare and reforming entitlements are two major keys to holding spending growth to 1.7%, instead of the CBO’s projection of nearly 5%. The result of Heritage’s prescription is deficit reduction (from CBO projections) of $9 trillion by 2026. That doesn’t quite erase Barack Obama’s legacy, but it goes a long way to restoring fiscal sanity.