海角大神

As a (written by my colleague, Cliff Isenberg) explains, they鈥檙e just not very 鈥渇orceful鈥�:

Process proposals such as caps, commissions, points of order and constitutional amendments are often appealing solutions for politicians because they frequently leave out the specifics of politically difficult decisions necessary to meet the targets. For elected officials, it is far easier to discuss a cap than it is to tell voters that their Social Security or Medicare benefits will be cut or a favorite tax deduction will be eliminated.

As a means of actually reducing deficits, the benefits of process proposals are less clear. In the past, similar proposals have had a mixed track record because they have frequently been poorly designed and weakened with exemptions. For a process proposal to have a meaningful effect on trillion-dollar deficits and our $14 trillion debt, these mistakes of the past must be avoided. An effective budget process proposal should limit exemptions, consider the entire federal budget to be on the table for deficit reduction, include realistic targets, and be accompanied by a bipartisan commitment both to enforce the targets and support the specific spending and revenue policies necessary to meet them.

It鈥檚 a lot like our real-world experience with 鈥減ay-as-you-go鈥� budget rules, and how we鈥檝e ended up (instead) with 鈥減aying-for-hardly-anything-as-we-went鈥� policies.

The sledgehammers turn out to have fly-swatter heads, and the 鈥渃aps鈥� turn out to be more like cheesecloths. (If you get what I mean.)

Unfortunately, there鈥檚 really no easy way to force the tough choices.

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