Cutting the U.S. budget deficit has always been a question of politics, not math. The seemingly simple approach-spend less, raise more, or some combination of the two-has long eluded Congress. A mining law that dates to 1872 helps explain why it's so difficult to disrupt the dysfunctional status quo. The General Mining Act, conceived during the Ulysses S. Grant administration to encourage development of the frontier, allowed prospectors to remove gold and other minerals from U.S. public lands without paying royalties.
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机译：削减美国预算赤字一直是政治问题，而不是数学问题。看似简单的方法-花费少，筹集更多或两者结合使用-长期以来一直困扰着国会。一部可追溯至1872年的采矿法有助于解释为何很难破坏功能失调的现状。在尤利西斯·格兰特（Ulysses S.
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