Balance of Power

The idea, in both cases, is to make it easier for lawmakers to take painful votes by shielding them from gutting amendments that would be hard to oppose. That’s exactly the kind of shield members of Congress will need to tackle the explosive growth in the deficit, these academics said, and bring long-term entitlement spending under control.

“Tackling these problems will require a degree of sacrifice impossible under the existing policy process, which discourages bipartisan compromise and encourages procrastination and obstructionism,” the groups said in the statement. “Unless those procedures are modified, and the American people are engaged in the process, future legislative attempts to address the looming fiscal crisis will almost certainly fail.”

But there’s a big difference between taking that approach on relatively narrow issues — such as whether one district versus another district loses military jobs — and using it on potentially sweeping cuts, especially on entitlements, that could affect the living standards of vast numbers of Americans.

That’s why liberal economists on a conference call yesterday warned that they’ll make a lot of noise if that happens, and criticized the groups for arguing that the political system can’t handle the long-term challenges. “The system is not broken,” said Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research. “What they have is a democratic system that is not giving them what they want.”

So far, the Obama administration hasn’t said what it thinks of the idea, and you can hardly blame them. (If that changes, we’ll update this post.) But this is a big decision the administration and Congress will have to grapple with at some point. Given everything that’s at stake in controlling the deficit, this is one case where the process will matter almost as much as the substance.