The Washington Post chides the Senate for rejecting the proposal for a bipartisan budget commission “with teeth”:
Lawmakers and presidents don’t like to increase revenue or decrease spending. But the alternative is cascading debt, declining standards of living and an end to American leadership in the world.
It was the teeth they objected to, of course. The Baucus amendment, approved by the Senate, would have exempted Social Security from consideration for changes. I have little doubt that other amendments would have exempted Medicare, defense spending, and so on until nothing was left but the smile.
The Post has now officially joined the “they just have to” club. It is very difficult to find examples of successful, powerful individuals who abandon the behaviors that produced their success and brought them to power. They may have to but they won’t.
A fundamental principle of optimization is that you can generally optimize the most where there’s the most to optimize. We’re not going to optimize 30% from 15% of the budget.
