I just received the following e-mail from David Malpass, former chief economist at Bear Stearns. I've know him for at least 25 years; we worked together at the U.S. Treasury Department. I wish him the best of luck.

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

As many of you know, I believe strongly in our country’s future, but have been dismayed at the decisions Washington has been making and their impact on New York state.   The problems go across the board – astronomical debt, out-of-control spending and taxes, federal decisions that undermine our security, health care legislation that would appall the drafters of the Constitution, and more.

As a result, I’ve been exploring a run for the U.S. Senate seat held by Sen. Gillibrand and wanted to give you an update.   I'm thrilled to say that we are making great progress on several fronts:  I'm assembling a top-notch team, we're reaching out to party members and county chairmen around the state, and we're taking the legal steps necessary to launch this huge effort in coming days.

 My Forbes column this week tries to answer the question. BB

It's a rare public opinion poll these days that doesn't show the national debt near the top of Americans' concerns. Huge budget deficits as far as the eye can see are a source of great worry, encouraging many people to join the so-called tea party movement to demand fiscal responsibility. President Obama has responded by asking for a freeze on nondefense discretionary spending, and appointing a commission to study the deficit and make recommendations for reducing it.

 Daniel Gross thinks so. BB

On the heels of the dopey Hensarling-Pence spending limitation constitutional amendment, which I tear apart here, the so-called Blue Dog Democrats are now supporting a balanced budget amendment (see here and here). When Republican presidential wannabe Tim Pawlenty put forward the same idea a few weeks ago I explained why it was a bad idea here. (Many of my criticisms of the Hensarling-Pence proposal are also valid against a BBA as well).

In today’s Wall Street Journal, Republican Reps. Jeb Hensarling of Texas and Mike Pence of Indiana put forward a dopey idea for reducing federal spending so that they can appear to be fiscally responsible while still supporting every tax cut that comes down the pike and opposing any and all tax increases. Their simplistic idea is to just enact a constitutional amendment that would limit federal spending to “one fifth of the economy.”

This is a terrible idea on so many levels that it is hard to know where to begin to dissect it, but here goes. 

I see that the Post Office is considering ending Saturday deliveries. I say, if it keeps the price of stamps from rising, go ahead.

Following are House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer's remarks today at the Brookings Institution. I have heard him speak a couple of times on the subject of fiscal responsibility and also noted that he has made some tough votes as well. I think I speak for all of those who are serious about fiscal responsibility that we have been looking for a real leader in Congress for some time who does more than pander to the tea party crowd with a lot of meaningless rhetoric. Perhaps Mr. Hoyer is the man who will give voice to our concerns as Ross Perot once did. BB

David Frum has a good post today on how the reforms of the 1970s that were supposed to make Congress work better actually destroyed its ability to function. While I don't disagree with David's specific points, I think he is ignoring the proverbial elephant in the living room: the demise of the conservative Southern Democrat.

It is becoming clearer and clearer with the passage of time that the period from 1938 to 1974 was unique in American political history. We all know that the Civil War made the South solidly Democratic, or perhaps more precisely anti-Republican. Republicans were, of course, the party of abolition and the hated Abraham Lincoln, and the Democratic Party was the beneficiary of this hatred.

But something curious happened in 1938. Franklin Roosevelt, flush from his enormous victory in 1936, was annoyed by the lack of enthusiasm many Southern Democrats had for the New Deal and he attempted to purge some of them by promoting more liberal primary opponents.

 There’s been a bit of a debate going on in the blogosphere lately about whether the Democrats should have proposed a more limited health reform plan in the first place. Such a plan might have gotten some Republican support or at least led to less intense Republican opposition and both improved the health system and given the Democrats a badly needed victory. The plan they proposed instead was too big to pass, so the thinking goes.

 My Forbes column this morning looks at the Wyden-Gregg plan for tax reform. BB

Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, has proposed lowering the age to qualify for early Social Security benefits to 60 from age 62 for the first 1 million people who apply. He assumes that all the people who would take advantage of this opportunity are currently employed.

Here is Glenn's complete response to my post: "Well, I was hoping for a thoughtful email from an expert, but instead I got a typically intemperate blog post from Bruce Bartlett. Bruce, I’m not trying to turn the United States into Zimbabwe. That would be the guy in the White House, whom you seem surprisingly anxious to defend."

Addendum: On Monday Glenn linked to this Stephen Bainbridge post about the rising risk of a federal debt default.

Executive Order -- National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered as follows:

Section 1. Establishment. There is established within the Executive Office of the President the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform (Commission).

Sec. 2. Membership.

Jackie Calmes is reporting that former Senator Alan Simpson, Republican of Wyoming, and Erskine Bowles, a Democrat from North Carolina who served as Bill Clinon's chief of staff, among other positions, will co-chair the deficit commission that Barack Obama will create by executive order following failure of a congressional commission to get sufficient votes in the Senate after several Republican cosponsors of the measure voted against it.

My Forbes column today is about Rep. Paul Ryan’s budget plan, which would eliminate the federal debt solely through spending cuts including the effective abolition of Medicare. I suggest that any members of the so-called tea party crowd or its putative leaders, such as Sarah Palin, who are unwilling to endorse it or put forward another budget plan equally as large, specific and comprehensive does not deserve the right to oppose tax increases or be taken seriously. It is, as I say, the budgetary Holy Grail for this crowd and they should know the full consequences of what they say they believe. In that respect, I think Ryan’s plan is very valuable.

It looks as if the poll I referenced earlier may have oversampled the most hardcore Republicans, thus inflating the influence of the kook element that both parties have. It doesn't appear to me that this was intentionally done to make Republicans look crazier than they are and it's not clear to me that the poll's methodology is wrong per se. It all depends on the question one wants to answer. If one wants to know just how crazy the Republican base is, then the methodology is perfectly legitimate. If one wants to know what percentage of the entire universe of Republican voters, including those whose connection to the party may be fairly loose, is crazy then the poll's methodology is going to overstate that percentage.

Anyone who reads the Wall Street Journal's editorial page knows that it hates the value-added tax. I don't mean hate the way it hates liberals, government regulators and the capital gains tax. No, the Journal hates the VAT more deeply and strenuously than anything else.

The reason is that the Journal sees the VAT as the essential fuel of the welfare state. Without it a European-style welfare state cannot exist. Therefore, if you hate the welfare state--as the Journal does--you must oppose the VAT with every fiber of your being. No fooling around; the VAT means Armageddon, the end of America as we know it and victory for welfare state liberalism. If we impose a VAT we will all soon be cheese-eating surrender monkeys just like the French.

The problem with the Journal's hatred of the VAT is that it also embraces consumption-based taxation. Under a pure consumption tax there would essentially be no taxes on the returns to capital--no taxes on interest, dividends or capital gains.