Amending the Budget Process

Over at Q and O they've got a good anti-pork proposal - that of unbundling, mandatory separation of each line item on the budget from every other. Conjectures and Refutations has a good games theory treatment of one side.



Well, this is all well and good, and I support it fully, in the "Whatever fraction of a loaf we can get is better than none" sense. However, one thing overlooked is that the various legislative branches, both in Congress and the individual states, now have a long history of backing each other on this particular Prisoner's Dilemma. It is the Way Things Are Done. This is analogous to subjecting a number of mobsters to the Prisoner's Dilemma, each of whom knows that the others not only have a history of not squealing on each other, but also a code whereby any who does break Omerta will have to face severe consequences later. The prognosis doesn't look good for the police in my example, or the taxpayers or economy in the real-world budget situation.



I have come to believe that the only way we are going to see real budgetary reform is to force the special interests and their pet congresscritters to fight each other by putting limits on what is available. The only realistic way I see of making this happen is to Constitutionally reform the budget process. My dream would be something like force a yearly fight on what is available, in the form of a yearly tax collection bill. This is one fight that everyone who wants a limited budget can weigh in on, to keep the number of projected tax dollars smaller. Mandatory set aside of whatever the interest on the national debt is. Mandatory set aside of ten percent of the gross amount for emergency spending, which requires the same approval process as any other public law, and anything left over from that must go towards debt reduction or investment after that gets paid off (If you're not an economist, you would likely be amazed at the positive difference this would make in our economy, as it would have the result of making investment capital plentiful, and therefore cheap). After these two set asides, the remaining pool of dollars is all that Congress is allowed to spend. Constitutionally, they could spend it all on pork, yet practically, where there are real national priorities at stake which make a real difference to their constituents, this is likely to force them, in most cases, to spend responsibly first.