Balancing the budget is difficult process

I can't help but chuckle when the political tongues start waging about eliminating tax loopholes.

In principle, tax advantages that favor special interests are easy to oppose.

But loopholes have now replaced "waste, fraud and abuse" as the popular mystery revenue source to solve our economic woes.

Actually, I'm curious why there isn't a specific list of these targeted loopholes for all the world to see. And with that list would be the amount of revenue they would produce.

Were you genuinely interested in reducing loopholes, that list would seem to be the logical starting point.

Instead we hear generic rhetoric that has much sound but little fury.

Here's part of the problem on closing these much-despised loopholes.

Let's say the railroad industry saves hundreds of millions in taxes each year because of special tax loopholes designed solely for their benefit.

Yet, if you tamper with these loopholes, the railroad promises to raise their fees for shippers to cover these higher taxes and pass those costs along to the consumers.

The railroad lobbyists open their deep pockets and consumer groups are aghast at the doom and gloom of higher prices for consumers.

The political winds start shifting in favor of retaining these special tax incentives.

And the can keeps rolling down the road.

But for discussion's sake, let's wave our magic wand and find $100 billion in annual tax loophole savings.

Surely we can find universal agreement on loopholes so egregious that few would oppose their elimination.

Nice first step!

So do we use that new found tax revenue to fund more government spending?

Do we use these funds to reduce our deficit?

Or do we lower taxes across the board and put that money back into the hands of those who earned it?

Finding new revenue - be it loopholes, waste, fraud or abuse - is difficult.

Deciding what to do with it may be next to impossible.