Published: June 12, 2009 10:36 am      

Paygo is the way to go

Editorial

Americans have been united that Congress needs to show some restraint in spending, and a proposal by President Barack Obama announced Tuesday challenges Congress to do just that.

Obama has called on Congress to put some teeth in the so called “pay-as-you-go” rules that they’ve been operating under. The concept of “paygo” has been that Congress should be required to offset new spending or new tax cuts with tax increases elsewhere or spending cuts elsewhere so as not to increase the federal deficit.

Both the House and Senate have their own paygo rules, but they don’t have the force of law. In fact, when senators in 2008 voted on imposing paygo rules on the $64 billion needed to remove the alternative minimum tax, its members voted it down.

The House rules on paygo also have loopholes that allow certain exceptions, sometimes for pet projects.

So, we applaud Obama for raising the issue and suggested we put more teeth in paygo. But the latest Obama plan is somewhat watered down version of his earlier paygo idea put forth in his own budget. That plan would require offsets of spending in the same year. This plan allows it over 10 years. That’s too loose a requirement. We know how a lot can get lost in 10 years in Congress.

Obama’s plan also wouldn’t apply to discretionary spending, that spending Congress decides on year to year that makes up 40 percent of the budget. That’s also not tough enough. It seems to us, discretionary spending is key spending that should be reined in.

The Obama plan would simply apply to expansion of entitlement programs, although Social Security payments would be exempt.

Obama has raised the issue again with his proposal. That should keep public scrutiny on Congress to put teeth into paygo rules and give them the force of law. Republican leaders have also criticized the president’s latest proposal, with House Republican Whip Eric Cantor saying, “The quickest way to save money is to stop recklessly spending it.”

While that is true, we suspect Cantor knows how difficult it is to keep Congress from spending excessively without a paygo rule. His party and president outspent the previous Democratic administration by leaps and bounds. We’d like to see the Republican propose their own, tougher paygo rules, but they’ve also been reluctant to do so.

In any case, putting teeth into paygo will impose some spending restraint. Obama’s plan needs to be tougher on years it applies and expand the amount of spending included. This is an opportunity for Republicans to show they can walk the walk of fiscal responsibility better than Democrats.