By Jackie Calmes

The New York Times

May 16, 2011

The history of previous efforts suggests that targets and triggers can be a mechanism for bipartisan compromise, but are no substitute for sustained political will.

The most prominent example, Gramm-Rudman-Hollings, was an act of desperation at a time of mounting deficits, partisan paralysis over solutions and a desire for political cover to raise the debt limit — a time much like today, except debt projections are much larger and political divisions arguably wider. The act set declining annual deficit targets to reach a balanced budget in five years; if these targets were missed, across-the-board cuts loomed.

“With no disrespect to those three senators, it was a strange idea,” Steve Bell, the Senate Republicans’ top budget adviser when the act was passed, recalled for a 2006 history of the Senate Budget Committee.

“Fortunately,” he said, “Gramm-Rudman-Hollings was so contrary to the culture and the Constitution and whole flow of legislative history, the first thing we did was to ignore it.”

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Economic Policy Project