Legislative Entrenchment
Here’s Ezra Klein, explaining the key part of the deal reached late yesterday:
In his remarks on Friday, President Obama said he would support a trigger if it was done in “a smart and balanced way.” The implication was that it had to include tax increases as well as spending cuts, as a trigger with just spending cuts wouldn’t force Republicans to negotiate in good faith. The trigger in this deal does not include tax increases.
What it includes instead are massive cuts to the defense budget. If Congress doesn’t pass a second round of deficit reduction, the trigger cuts $1.2 trillion over 10 years. Fully half of that comes from defense spending. And note that I didn’t say “security spending.” The Pentagon takes the full hit if the trigger goes off.
The other half of the trigger comes from domestic spending. But Social Security, Medicaid and a few other programs for the poor are exempted. So the trigger is effectively treating defense spending like it comprises more than half of all federal spending. If it goes off, the cuts to that sector will be tremendous — particularly given that they will come on top of the initial round of cuts. Whether you think the trigger will work depends on whether you think the GOP would permit that level of cuts to defense.
If the trigger “works,” of course, it’s never used. Instead, the bipartisan committee produces $1.5 trillion (or more) in deficit reduction, Congress passes their plan and the president signs it. But why should we believe that will happen? If Republicans and Democrats couldn’t agree on major deficit reduction this year, why is it going to be any easier in an election year?
The answer is supposed to be the trigger. Those cuts are meant to be so brutal that neither party will risk refusing a deal. But a deal means taxes, or at least is supposed to mean taxes. And Speaker John Boehner is already promising that taxes are off the table.
The biggest problem here is that Congress is completely incapable of binding itself over time. And everyone knows it. There’s a name for the problem — legislative entrenchment — and a line of Supreme Court cases supporting it. And there’s Blackstone before that. (More here, if you want. But the headline is misleading, as the only significant loophole to legislative entrenchment is that one Congress can compel another to pay off its debts — not, shall we say, helpful in this situation.)
What one Congress enacts, another Congress can repeal. Always. This problem is often brushed aside, but it makes a lot of policy proposals ultimately silly the longer you look at them. Al Gore’s Social Security lockbox is the most infamous example, but unless I’m missing something really big, this one bids fair to surpass it.
My hypothesis: It fools the ordinary folk. Not because it’s convincing. But because it has to.
Jason, your explanation is spot on as I understand it. Where I disagree is that the young turks/tea partiers/shirelings do NOT have to agree today when they vote. They can vote NO, and I’m contacting my rep, Bill Johnson Oh-6, to ask him to hang tough.
If we can’t get REAL reductions in fed spending now, when will we? As you know there does not have to be a default. The country can pay its debt bill, ss, medicare, military and some other stuff, the rest can be put in abeyance. Let the commie-Dems sort out who they want to pay, in the meantime, let’s meaningfully cut fed spending and save the next generation.Report
If we can’t get REAL reductions in fed spending now, when will we?
When the GOP controls Congress and the WH? Hah!
What, you can’t take a joke?Report
Actually, GOP control of both Houses will swing it. Post-1994, Clinton was dragged kicking and screaming into fiscal responsibility and now gets credit for it.
Perhaps BHO will be satisfied with such a legacy.
Mr. Kuznicki properly hears through the noise:
The biggest problem here is that Congress is completely incapable of binding itself over time. And everyone knows it.
I would hate to compare this episode to Ft. Sumter, as it will only encourage Mr. Cheeks, and besides the South lost anyway. But this is just the beginning. GOP control of the House is relatively safe—the primary [or at least most attainable] goal of the Tea Party was a “restraining order” on the BHO/Pelosi agenda of Euro-stating the US. A new Golden Age of expanding FDRism and LBJism has been thwarted for the foreseeable.
GOP control of the Senate post-2012 would make actual cuts possible, leaving BHO only his last ditch, his namesake health care initiative, which could still survive albeit bloodied and bruised. Like Reagan on the Soviets and Dubya on Afghanistan/Iraq, BHO could prove flexible if he can keep his One Big Thing.
As for defense spending, the DoD budget is only $7-800B. With a $1.5T yearly deficit, even abolishing DoD gets us not nearly enough.
“I would say … that symbolically, that agreement is moving us to the point where we are having the final interment of John Maynard Keynes,” [Sen. Dick Durbin] said, referring to the British economist. “He nominally died in 1946 but it appears we are going to put him to his final rest with this agreement.”
Well, we have that going for us, which is nice. But even military spending has a Keynesian effect, so mebbe not so nice.Report
This isn’t a bug, it’s a feature. Isn’t the ability to change policies with elections sort of key attribute of a representative democracy?
If you don’t like what they’re doing, then elect different people.Report
I agree. Democratic governance is inherently messy and incapable of creating policy that isn’t suboptimal. But supposedly, that’s its virtue: that it fluidly moves between competing visions of what actually is optimal.Report
Of course it’s a feature, not a bug. But it also preemptively ruins plans like the one just announced. What’s the likelihood that Congress will stick to it? Who even knows?Report
But the point is that passing this bill with the trigger as a key component is silly — silly stuff.Report
whoops, posted before I saw Jason’s commentReport
What congress is doing is raising the debt ceiling by 2.5 trillion dollars with a lot of sound and fury, signifying squat.Report
‘Fully half of that comes from defense spending. And note that I didn’t say “security spending.” The Pentagon takes the full hit if the trigger goes off.’
So the big boys see their DoD contracts cut, and then reapply under the aegis of DHS or CIA or Justice or Treasury or….
(and who doesn’t love ‘Whole of Government’ solutions?)
(really, does Klein never listen to the ads on WTOP?)Report