The Wall Street Journal comments:
Democrats ran on “paygo” in 2006, promising to offset any new spending increases or tax cuts with comparable tax increases or spending cuts. Once in charge on Capitol Hill they quickly made exceptions, waiving paygo no fewer than 12 times to accommodate some $398 billion in new deficit spending — not that the press corps bothered to notice. That didn’t stop Majority Leader Steny Hoyer from announcing in May that “We’re absolutely committed to paygo. Speaker [Nancy Pelosi] is committed to paygo. I’m very committed to paygo. Our caucus is committed to paygo.”
But that was with a Republican president. With Obama coming into office, matters are different:
Late last week the leader of the House Blue Dog Coalition, Tennessee Democrat Jim Cooper, announced that with Barack Obama about to enter the White House, “I’m not sure the old rules are relevant anymore.” Why not? Because, Mr. Cooper said, “It would be unfair to the new President to put him in a budget straitjacket.”
Good riddance. At its best, “paygo” was bad policy, because it over-estimated the impact of tax cuts while under-estimating the cost of spending. And it had no impact at all on “off-budget” expenditures. Moreover, it was rarely at its best. As the WSJ notes, Democrats waived it whenever it got in the way of their priorities. Its primary purpose was as a bulwark against tax cuts.
(Via Instapundit.)
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