I still hold that this is a meaningful proposal. When you combine that with tax reforms and a Medicare fix, the budget starts to look a whole lot better.
If our budgets over the next 5 years resemble anything remotely like this proposal, I hereby grant you one giant “I told you so.” But it looks to me like compromises were already made before it got turned over to the real budget-makers. That sort of takes the meaning out of the exercise for me. I mean, you can go online to one of those “Fix the Budget” websites. Make your own proposal. Given the current state of things, congress might listen to you over this proposal. Of course, I’m a genuine pessimist on several of the issues. The first being that I don’t believe congress would pass meaningful spending caps without a sovereign debt or currency crisis forcing their hand. How many of the newly elected “conservatives” do you think will vote for the next bill to raise the debt ceiling? My guess is “Enough for it to pass.”
