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economic stability with unsustainable tax cuts. I don’t believe that Congress should pass
such an amendment. As previous Democratic administrations have shown, deficit
spending can be a valuable tool in stimulating the economy in hard time if done
responsibly.
Bringing back the pay-as-you-go budget rules that expired in 2002 would be a
step in the right direction towards fiscal austerity. The House Budget Committee last
March approved legislation that would resurrect the pay-go rules
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. Stated simply, pay-
go rules require corresponding cuts in spending for entitlement expansions and tax cuts.
For example, if someone were to propose tax cuts without a plan to pay for them that year
and every subsequent year, the legislation would not survive. However, the pay-go
legislation approved by the House Budget Committee died last year because of a rift over
whether or not to include tax cuts in the pay-go requirement. On March 15, 2005, the
New York Times reported that the debate over whether or not to extend the pay-go rules
to tax cuts is ongoing
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. There are moderates in the GOP who see the hypocrisy in
excluding tax cuts in pay-go rules, so hopefully significant pay-go legislation will get
passed this year. Such legislation would almost certainly keep the Bush tax cuts from
becoming permanent, which would be a blow to the administration.
The most obvious solution to avoiding fiscally incompetent policies, and reckless
policies in general, is to have our national leaders choose policy experts as advisors who
are objective and sincerely want to craft sound policy that actually solves problems as
opposed to choosing political ideologues as advisors. Simply, pragmatism must be
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Friedman, Joel and Greenstein, Fred. “House Budget Committee Pay-As-You-Go Proposal Would
Excempt All Tax Cuts and Make a Mockery of Efforts to Restore Fiscal Discipline”. Center on Budget and
Policy Priorties. June 23, 2004. 1
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Kirkpatrick, David and Stolberg, Sheryl. “G.O.P. Rebellion Threatens to Derail Efforts to Adopt
Budget”. New York Times. March 15, 2005. Online
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