Perhaps I am becoming more cynical with age, but I don’t know that we will ever see politicians of either party take any sort of serious action with respect to paying for programs. Even when the majority agree that a fix is needed, they still will find a way to kick the can to some future Congress or generation of Americans.

As much as I loathe the idea of institutional rules designed to enforce adult behavior, I am more and more inclined towards either pay-go or else a balanced budget amendment (with appropriate caveats for counter-cyclical spending during recessions, etc.).