By Bill Frenzel and Tim Penny
Wednesday, July 23 1997; Page A23

How did the bipartisan effort to balance the budget turn into a feeding frenzy, with politicians of all political persuasions competing to create new programs, spend more money and cut taxes?

We are enjoying an extremely healthy economy. The bull market, rapid job growth and the lowest unemployment in 30 years have combined to produce a series of pleasant surprises on the revenue side of the budget. Consequently, budget negotiators received substantial windfalls that almost have eliminated the need for them to make hard choices.

Some want to use surpluses they now anticipate to "pay for" additional new programs and higher spending for transportation, education, etc. Some want to use the money for additional tax cuts. Almost everybody has a scheme to mortgage any surpluses that might occur for their preferred purposes, and many would prefer to do so now – actually enact laws to spend the money and/or cut taxes before the surpluses even materialize.

As a result, it is entirely possible that spending and deficits would be lower, the budget would balance sooner, the country would be prepared better to face the real challenges we face as the baby boom generation retires and Social Security and Medicare as we know them become unsustainable if Congress and the president fail to pass legislation to implement the budget deal.

However, there is no do-nothing option. In the absence of an agreement to balance the budget, the budget will not be balanced. Can you imagine Congress and the president sitting on their collective hands for five years, enacting no spending increases and no tax changes? Congress and the president will find ways to spend money. They might even reach agreement on some tax cuts. They will not just tread water.

Against this background, a hardy bipartisan band of budget hawks is trying to infuse some common sense into the debate, and actually will get a vote in the House. Reps. Joe Barton (R-Tex.), David Minge (D-Minn.), Mike Castle (R-Del.), Charles Stenholm (D-Tex.) and others want to enforce the spending and revenue levels in the bipartisan budget deal and limit future abuses of so-called "emergency disaster spending." In other words, they want the president and Congress to write the budget agreement into law and enforce it – unless they pass a law to change the deal.

The Barton-Minge troops had the votes to keep the House from voting on the reconciliation bills to implement the budget agreement, so the leadership promised to give them a vote, which is scheduled today. That is not to say that the leadership supports this effort. Indeed, it is safe to say the White House, many congressional leaders and everyone who wants more spending and deeper tax cuts will do all he can to defeat this effort.

This timid budget deal deserves only lukewarm support. Absent strong enforcement provisions, this deal is not really a balanced-budget agreement.

Unless Congress and the president adopt something along the lines of the Barton-Minge bill, every dime of new projected tax revenue will go for spending and tax cuts – before Treasury can collect the money. As the current generation of politicians spends projected surpluses, entitlements and other mandatory spending may grow much faster than the budget projections. Unanticipated entitlement growth and revenue shortfalls frustrated earlier attempts to balance the budget. Absent stronger enforcement, nothing in the current agreement can keep that from happening again.

An agreement to balance the budget and keep it balanced means that policymakers could move on to the truly serious challenges posed by the aging of the population. The country faces what Office of Management and Budget Director Frank Raines refers to as a "generational deficit" – skyrocketing deficits and debt (and resulting higher federal taxes) to finance benefits for members of the baby boom generation when they begin to retire in less than 15 years.

Without strong enforcement along the lines of the bipartisan budget enforcement bill, without a system to hold Congress and the president accountable for actually getting to budget balance before they go on another spending and tax-cutting spree, without this important discipline, the balanced budget effort will wind up as a bipartisan spending increase/tax cut bill, and Congress and the president will squander a historic opportunity to balance the budget and safeguard our economic future.

Bill Frenzel, a Republican, and Tim Penny, a Democrat, are former representatives from Minnesota. They are co-chairmen of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.