Matt Miller Is Dr. Strangebudget

I'm not sure how many people these days remember the movie "Dr. Strangelove," the 1964 Stanley Kubrick directed/Peter Sellers tour de force that was a take off on another movie of that year, "Fail-Safe."

Dr. Strangelove's full title was "Dr. Stangelove or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb" and the basic joke was how the dropping of an atomic bomb (they didn't call them nuclear weapons back then) might not be such a bad thing after all.  It was as funny as "Fail-Safe" was frightening.

Matt Miller, a deficit hawk long before the phrase was commonly used, has now adopted the Dr. Strangelove mentality when thinking about the atomic bomb-like deficits that are about to occur.  As I wrote in my "Fiscal Fitness" column this week, and as Matt has now put out there for all to see. previously unimaginably high federal deficits are now not just a fait accompli, but something we all need tio learn to love.

To deal with the deficits and debt that will result from all this love, Matt suggests something that I don't think will work: a rigid budget process that will require deficit reduction when certain economic milestones -- such as unemployment falling below 6 percent -- are reached.  As Matt suggests, triggers may create some comfort among those those who we need to lend us money that they will get repaid and, therefore, make it more likely that they will actually absorb the volume of U.S. securities that are and will continue to flood the market.

They also may make deficit hawks feel better about life.  But we shouldn't actually expect that they will work or be imposed unless the political will exists at the time.

In the meantime, I'm happy to give Matt the title of "Dr. Strangebudget."