One Way to Balance the Budget
It's subscriber only, but Stanford economist Edward Lazear has a must-read op-ed in the Wall Street Journal today. Lazear's done the math and concluded that if America limits growth in government to the inflation rate minus one percent, we'd have a balanced budget within a decade and would be in a better position to pay down the debt. Lazear's argument complements the GOP pledge to return non-defense discretionary spending to 2008 levels. Personally, I'd like to see larger cuts, especially in the Post Office. But Lazear's proposal strikes me as politically realistic.
In the past, Democratic attacks made Republicans cautious about calling for limited government and budgetary restraint. To put it mildly, our democracy doesn't have a fantastic track record of rescinding entitlements. But the past half decade of political and economic upheaval may have caused the public, or at least conservatives and independents, to open up to new approaches to governance. You see this newfound openness in the Tea Party's popularity and the rise of Paul Ryan. That's why the GOP Pledge to America can be rightly criticized for being too cautious. If Republicans gain power, here's hoping Congressman Ryan hands out Lazear's article at the first House Budget Committee meeting.
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Re: One Way to Balance the Budget
Ed Lazear's piece arrested my attention, too, Matt. Like you, I'd like to whack at big government a lot harder than Ed considers necessary. But I'd be happy to settle for "inflation minus one." Happy? Delighted.
Re: One Way to Balance the Budget
Peter, I neglected to mention that "Inflation Minus One!" would make a great chant at future Tea Party marches. I'd rally behind it.
May '10
Re: One Way to Balance the Budget
This is a good idea because it prevents the distracting conflict over elimination of departments as a financial proposition. After the DoEd and NEA debates, which the Right lost decisively because half of conservatives didn't really believe in the ideas (the same issue with public education- prior to Davis Guggenheim, most of the Right still wanted big fancy K-12 public education budgets till their own kids had graduated HS), there is no percentage in fighting over killing departments- when the issue is cash.
The philosophical argument has to be developed to stand on its own, as with vouchers and civil rights.
Many people forget that Gramm-Rudman-Hollings really worked, which is why a bipartisan coalition in Congress killed it.
This would far easier to handle if the Republicans did nothing other than kill the single biggest culprit in our dilemma- the current services baseline, which is an anti-intellectual travesty as a concept.
May '10
Re: One Way to Balance the Budget
This might have legs:
1. It's easy to say
2. It's easy to remember
3. It seems fair (i.e., it doesn't gore anybody's ox deliberately)
4. It isn't so easy to construct a concise argument against it.