> From what I heard, no combination of groups in the beltway bothered to expend the political capital to actually force through across the board cuts.

The administration successfully passed through some recisissions (the ones that gutted the entire USAID program, CPB, and etc) and passed the OBBBA. To say the "backed out" I think is a bit too generous. They essentially threw out anything that wasn't hard bolted down by the Constitution.

The reality is there is not any real way to achieve significant cuts without entitlement reforms or defense cuts (lol).