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Tuesday, January 23, 2007
PayGo on TPM Cafe
An interesting discussion on PayGo has popped up on TPM Cafe. Amitai Etzioni wrote we shouldn't go by PayGo because it'll only lead to surpluses that Republicans will squander on their well-heeled constituents. Point well taken. Paul Krugman recently made a similar point, though less in terms of PayGo and more in terms of the deficit.
But that's not the end of the story. Greg Anrig at TPM Cafe has an interesting response to Etzioni's post. He thinks PayGo is a good way to define Democrats as responsible and competent and Republicans as crazy.
I'd go farther and say PayGo is plain old good policy. And it doesn't, as Etzioni seems to claim, necessarily lead to deficit-reduction. All it does is help keep Congress from making the deficit worse. If Democrats want to invest more in social priorities, they can certainly do so as long as they pay for it.
Perhaps Etzioni is worried that tax receipts will go way up on their own this session, and PayGo will keep the Dems from spending these new revenues. In that unlikely event, which I haven't heard anyone say they expect, maybe Dems should go ahead and spend some of it. But let's cross that bridge when we come to it.
Plus, PayGo doesn't have anything to do with discretionary spending; Dems could spend as much as they want through the appropriations process. Discretionary programs, after all, could use more funding. Why not concentrate on that?
But the bottom line is that PayGo mostly puts up a (surmountable) obstacle for massive legislated increases in entitlement spending or decreases in revenues. If any party wants to do either of those things, they should abide by PayGo and budget for it. Otherwise, it's too easy for present Congresses to reduce future revenues, which makes it harder for future Congresses to pass important policy. Isn't having Congress in such a weakened position all too familiar by now?
Posted by Matt Lewis
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