A New Fiscal Commission Could Decide the Budget Crisis

Leaders from both parties for decades have kicked the can of federal deficits down the road. The Simpson-Bowles recommendations from 2010 — widely endorsed by responsible observers — were never seriously considered either by President Obama or by Republican leadership. Then huge COVID-19 subsidies came along, and the fiscal road now faces a dead end. Unless the deficits are dramatically reduced, Social Security payouts will risk cuts of around 25 percent within a decade.

But, to politicians, altering benefits and raising taxes is a form of political suicide. Democracies aren’t good at cutting back, as the philosopher Polybius observed two thousand years ago. Look at the mass protests in France over raising the retirement age from 62 to 64. That’s why President Biden’s budget ignores the looming crisis, and Republicans talk mainly in generalities instead of offering concrete ideas.

The path forward is not political brinksmanship, but to remove politics and punt the solution to a nonpartisan committee, subject only to an up-or-down vote by Congress. Just as independent “base-closing commissions” decide the politically-difficult choices of which military bases to close, so too an external “Fiscal Commission” could present broader proposals that will have benefits as well as costs for most stakeholders.

Read the full article here.