The Gregg proposal, in addition to the new line-item veto, would create a new Gramm-Rudman-Hollings type measure to balance the budged by 2012. This measure automatically would slow the rate of growth of mandatory programs if Congress failed to meet deficit reduction targets.
Next, it would re-instate statutory caps on discretionary spending (and the use of the all too convenient and burgeoning emergency spending), enforceable by an across-the-board sequester if Congress failed to adhere to caps.
It would authorize a point of order against direct spending triggered when the Medicare program is projected to become insolvent in seven years or less. Senator Gregg points out that our aging population and higher health care costs have caused Medicare to be the first of the large entitlements projected to go insolvent.
Finally, it would create two bi-partisan Commissions. The first would look at the efficiency and accountability of Federal Government programs in a manner similar to Base Realignment and Closure ("BRAC"). The base closing Commission puts items on the table. The President gets the chance to pick and choose. Then they go to Congress. Most are voted to be closed. Before BRAC you could never close a base because Members protected each other. The same would apply to Federal programs. This is a concept which the Free Congress Foundation and its sister organization Coalitions for America have pushed for several years. The bill to accomplish that has been introduced by Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS) and Representative Todd Tiahrt (R-KS). We commend Senator Gregg for picking up on what we feel is a concept which actually would work.
The Commission proposed by Senator Gregg, by the way, would provide solutions to the impending entitlement crisis. The bill taken as a whole is tough medicine and contains some items about which Senator Gregg never has been personally enthused. Nevertheless, he should be commended for biting the bullet. Majority Leader William H. Frist, M.D. (R-TN), commonly known as Senator Bill Frist, has not yet announced whether these measures will be voted on individually or as a package. There is a chance that they won't be voted on this year at all.
Given the slowness of the legislative process it would have been more helpful had this reform package had been introduced at the beginning of the 109th Congress rather than near its end. It is surely better late that never. Democrats have actually managed to become in the eyes of the voting public more fiscally responsible of late. This reform measure if debated for several days in the Senate has the chance, at least, to reverse that perception.