Breaking the Logjam

The buzzworthy budget-related news this week comes from Alan Greenspan taking President Bush to task in his new book. But you don't need me to write about Alan Greenspan's book. Everybody's got something to say about Greenspan's book. So I'm going to point out something that you may not have heard about and that may be more important in the long run.

Yesterday the leaders of the Senate Budget Committee proposed a bill to create a bipartisan commission to deal with entitlements and the long-term budget problem. The group will be evenly split between Republicans and Democrats and Congress would be required to give their plan an up-or-down, all-or-nothing vote in early 2009, right as the new administration takes office.

There are real advantages to this idea. Bipartisanship is crucial to any plan and the idea of building in a Congressional vote at least guarantees this one will get a hearing, unlike some other commissions we can think of. Bipartisanship, of course, does not guarantee success, as the backers of immigration reform know all too well. That's why, to me, this is the most important quote in the announcement:

But change cannot be accomplished without both political parties being invested in the outcome, and helping their constituents to understand the problem and the impact of the solutions.

This problem can't be solved by a purely inside-the-Beltway strategy. Changes to Medicare and Social Security simply affect too many people and touch too many emotional chords to be handled without real public engagement. Fortunately, the public can deal with this. Americans really can face the problem, weigh the tradeoffs and come to conclusions. The next step should be giving the public a chance to actually do that.