A Modest Proposal to Begin to Control Spending

Suppose that the House of Representatives were to hold hearings and then pass a budget for a Department like Interior or Labor that reduced spending by 8% through efficiencies like consolidating overlapping programs or eliminating ineffectual ones. Suppose that after that spending bill was passed, the House allowed the Senate 90 days to act and after that refused to authorize spending for the Department in question above the level approved in the spending bill. The Democrats and the White House would complain, but they would be left in a position with three choices: 1)shutting down the department in question completely; 2)coming to agreement and passing the spending bill; or 3)accepting the reduced spending in the continuing resolution without ever agreeing to the specifics. Of course, the Senate could refuse to pass a continuing resolution for the entire government absent full funding for the department in question, but even the American media could not easily blame a government shutdown on the GOP if the only thing at issue was an 8% cut in the budget of the Department of the Interior (or some other similar Department) when the GOP had already passed a continuing resolution for the rest of the government.

Right now, the focus of the fiscal cliff is only on taxes. It needs to be shifted back to spending. A simple strategy like this one could accomplish such a shift. Once the first Department bill was passed, a second and a third could be put through. Eventually, the Democrats in the Senate would have to consider these spending bills and they would have to come to some agreement with the House. A government shut down on these items would be unlikely, and, if done, it would be unlikely to succeed.

Of course, the problem with this strategy is that it does nothing to address entitlement spending, the main driver of the deficit. That may have to wait for the future even though the delay will hurt us all severely. Nevertheless, this strategy would allow the GOP House to provide a structured plan for cutting spending, one area at a time. It might even work.

As an alternative, the House could refuse to authorize any spending by continuing resolution that raised spending on any program above the levels of 2012 spending. Under the crazy accounting rules of Washington, that would be a major spending "cut", but it would nevertheless be a simple concept to explain to even the most backward voter. The House would be saying, we are approving spending at the exact same levels of last year, but we will not approve any increases unless they are part of a balanced plan that provides for needed cuts.

Being the party of fiscal sanity is not a bad place for the GOP to position itself.