Blue Ribbon Committee not being "structural change" whatsoever. By my definition anyway.
It seems we agree more than I thought we did.
However, I regard *almost any* "structural change" as BETTER and STRONGER then all the non-structural changes, all the non-lasting, non-guaranteed changes that there are.
Here is where we disagree. I think actual serious reduction in deficits, however they are reduced, will have a greater effect on future deficits, than the very weak structural changes will (not perhaps than strong structural changes, but I don't see any of them happening any time soon)
If they are reduced by raining in non-entitlement spending, than I think the effect is even stronger, if by eliminating non-entitlement programs, than even stronger, and if by serious reform of entitlements than I think the effect, even in narrow terms of reducing future deficits, would be as strong as very strong structural reforms; not as major of effect as the tightest and strongest imaginable and technically/constitutionally possible structural reforms, but at least as strong if not stronger than any even semi-realistic structural reform (assuming your not considering entitlement reform itself and elimination of programs to itself be structural, which by some definitions it is). |
