An Idea So Crazy It Just Might Work
The New York Times has been getting a lot of attention for its budget calculator the last few days. So here's the idea. We get the Congressional Budget Office to set up an official deficit simulation model. It's in a secret room in the Capitol on one computer with no connection to the outside world. Access to the room and the computer can only be gotten by use of the card that all House members use to register their votes. Every House member is given a deadline to play the simulation or their input will be ignored. They can do the simulation any way they want, but at the end of the day ANY PROVISION GETTING MORE THAN 50 PERCENT IS DEEMED TO HAVE PASSED THE HOUSE. Whether any of it will pass the Senate is another matter. But maybe it would be a start.
The Choices
I am opposed to a single deficit commission made up of rich government insiders coming up with the only option to balance the budget. I think we need to decide on a budget target and let any interested parties come up with a detailed plan to reach that target (based on analysis by CBO or a similar analysis). Then we can debate the relative merits of the different plans and voters of legislators can vote.
This would have the benefit of making the comparison between competing plans instead of the current situation where we compare a single plan to the 'do nothing' alternative. The latter comparison almost guarantees nothing will happen.
Crazy ideas
The big problem with the Times budget calculator is it's limited options. Example: We could save $500 billion by eliminating Medicare Part D, and instead prohibit the pharmaceuticals from discriminating against Americans(anyone purchasing drugs overseas knows what I mean); but, we have no way of including such options.
Yes, I felt the same - that
Yes, I felt the same - that partial choices are not available. Also for example how would Medicare be "restricted" to GDP+1 if it were going over - would all reimbursement stop halfway through November or something? Such "caps" are unworkable evasions of needing either to legislate properly or to have human individuals within the Federal Government (or a contractor to it) making yes/no choices under delegated authority just as private sector business do all the time.
But it was a very worthwhile exercise as it provided graphic depiction of the scales of various issues i.e. earmarks or foreign aid vs. Medicare. Many Congressional candidates' rhetoric would suggest they have some sort of parity but in actuality two of these are footnotes to a footnote on the other in terms of order of magnitude.
Medicare Part D was basically
Medicare Part D was basically repealed in the new healthcare law... That's how they got the 500 billion in savings from "waste, fraud and abuse".
I wish that were true; but it
I wish that were true; but it isn't: Part D still exists; the doughnut hole still exists; seniors still pay $thousands for drugs; and the taxpayers still pay $hundreds of billions for those same drugs.
A little love for Marketplace
I love the NYT calculator, but I just want to give a hat tip to American Public Media for having had this idea out for a couple of years now.
http://marketplace.publicradio.org/features/budget_hero/
Congresswoman Schakowsky has
Congresswoman Schakowsky has proposed an alternative plan here. http://schakowsky.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id...
Let us treat it with at least as much seriousness as the Simpson-Bowles plan, and give due consideration to its merits.
Easy
She shows how easy it is to balance the budget when you are not bought and paid for by multinational corporations.
Another budget calculator
Matt Yglesias linked to the CEPR budget calculator the other day; I rather prefer it to the NYT's version.
http://www.cepr.net/calculators/calc_deficit.html
Why not take it one step
Why not take it one step further? Give each registered voter a single use I.D. to log in to a program and make their own choices. Congress and the CBO create the options, thereby ensuring that those most familiar with the budget process and revenue projections frame the issues. Also, Congress could set a budget target to keep spending to a minimum, say, "x" percentage of last year's budget. When the votes are tallied, the cuts with the most votes are automatically made (subject, of course, to the President's veto power) but only up to the budget target. Once the budget target is reached, no further cuts are made. If it works, the following year's target could be raised by Congress as needed.
I don't any longer assume
I don't any longer assume that House members represent the people who voted for them.
You give them too much credit
You assume that House members are intelligent enough to understand a budget. My rep can't do simple math, and, by her own admission, she needs to take classes on the Constitution.
http://minnesotaindependent.com/73958/meet-david-barton-bachmanns-consti...
Single-payer
How much would single-payer health care save. Most Oecd countries pay $3000 per capita for health care. We pay $7000 per capita. That is a potential savings of $1 trillion a year. Let's have a rational discussion of that alternative.
another crazy idea
why not hook up that secret computer to the precincts and let the people decide how to balance the budget?
I realize there is a certain
I realize there is a certain amount of facetiousness in the locked-room proposal. Still, I think it is worth mentioning that individual proposals, as opposed to negotiated packages, can lead to perverse results, and a locked room involves no accountability. Do we think that farm subsidies would be cut? Real question, not rhetorical. If lobbyists don't see you, you can vote for anything, but if voters don't see you, why would you? I don't know.
Surely, gaming such a system would be pretty easy. More than 50 votes? I can cut the arts in a flash, just out of spite, because I can lobby to have arts funding ON THE LIST. Once it's on, it's gone, because there is a substantial minority in DC itching to make us courser and dumber than we already are. I can cut food aid to kids in the blink of a fat cat's eye, because I can lobby to have it on the list, and there are enough bagger-minded people in the House that any cut to the poor is a welcomed opportunity. One of these imagined cuts matters more than the other. One needs an offset in some other program, but this is a machine that only cuts, and doesn't balance one part of the budget with another.
We don't need gimmicks. We need better lawmakers. We won't get them under current Supreme Court rulings, so we'll just careen down this path a while longer.
I Agree
If we need to allow our legislators to vote in secret, our democracy is in bad shape. We should get serious about removing the corrupting influence of money from elections and then we might have some representatives that are proud of their votes again.