Always-irascible Brad Delong:
Two-thirds of the long-term fifty-year deficit and debt problem that the Congressional Budget Office saw a year ago has been eliminated if the U.S. Congress now sticks to PAYGO -- as it did during the Clinton years -- and doesn't pass new programs and amendments to old programs that add to the deficit.
You would think that enormous action to bend the curve over the long run in the U.S. government's tax and spending plans -- the greatest single act of fiscal conservatism in American history -- would have deficit hawks partying in the streets, reeling drunkenly past the Capitol after midnight in conga lines blowing horns, wouldn't you?
Aside from the missed opportunity to reference a Vuvuzela -- we will never have the occasion to talk of this devil horn again, so we shouldn't miss out -- Delong's point here is sound. Now, can Congress actually achieve this aim? Doubtful, but so is the CBO's opposite projection that the legislature will not only ignore PAYGO rules but actually repeal almost every cost-saving measure it has recently passed. Given the amount of attention and criticism toward the CBO's alternative fiscal scenario, I'm starting to wonder if Director Doug Elmendorf intended it as some kind of grand warning toward Congress and the American people about what could happen if things get out of hand -- or, as Delong puts it, if Republicans come back into power.
-- Tim Fernholz
