General Revenue Sharing

My column from this moring's Roll Call shows why it's not smart to think that previously tried or rejected ideas are the answers to dealing with current federal budget problems.

Hopelessly Retro Budget Ideas Make a Comeback

Sept. 28, 2010

A number of old ways of dealing with budget problems suddenly seem to be back in style. A month or so ago, some lawmakers were seriously suggesting a revival of general revenue sharing, the Nixon-era program that was first discredited back in the late 1970s. Then the phrase “government shutdown” cropped up a few weeks ago, even though the tactic yielded such disastrous political results in 1995 and 1996 that it was assumed to be buried in an unmarked political grave, never to be found again.

There's no quicker way to get long-time federal budget watchers to curl up in a fetal position and rock back and forth while moaning in pain than to mention three words: general revenue sharing.  Yet Robert Shiller not only used that phrase this morning in this excellent piece in The New York Times, he recommended that the program be brought back to life as a way to help state and local governments out of their fiscal problems and, therefore, to help fix the U.S. economy.

Some background for those too young to remember or for who the original experience is still too painful to recall voluntarily.