Why the President’s Failsafe Proposal Fails
Much of the initial press coverage of the President’s speech this afternoon has focused on the “fail-safe” provision he touted as a way to guarantee that promised deficit reduction targets will be achieved. Over and above the fact that the President’s proposal exempts more than half the budget (i.e., the entitlement programs driving our long-term budget deficits) from cuts under the “fail-safe,” there’s a bigger philosophical issue: The President already proposed a “fail-safe” mechanism – in his health care proposal – yet failed to deliver. Here’s what the President promised in his speech to Congress back in September 2009:
First, I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits — either now or in the future. (Applause.) I will not sign it if it adds one dime to the deficit, now or in the future, period. And to prove that I’m serious, there will be a provision in this plan that requires us to come forward with more spending cuts if the savings we promised don’t materialize. (Applause.)
Language from Section 1209 of the Finance Committee-passed bill (S. 1796) that accomplished the President’s stated objective, by reducing subsidy spending in the event of a finding that the bill would increase the deficit in any given year. This language was explicitly called a “Fail-Safe Mechanism to Prevent Increase in Federal Budget Deficit” – nearly the exact same wording the White House used today. Yet this provision to ensure the health care law NEVER increased the deficit didn’t make it into law – it was left on the cutting-room floor in Harry Reid’s office when the Democrat majority retreated to the backrooms to draft the final measure.
This history of course raises an obvious question: If the President is so interested in budgetary “fail-safes” NOW, why didn’t he demand this “fail-safe” for health care be included THEN? And because he didn’t fight for the provision then, why should Americans believe his “born again” attitude towards budgetary triggers and “fail-safes” now?