The ins and the outs

have to match for us to have a balanced budget. The co-chairs of the President's Fiscal Commission (Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson) were talking with the National Governor's Association yesterday. Grim stuff. The key is that the aspect of the deficit driven by the financial crisis is not the major problem--the structural deficit is. That means the deficit that is inevitable given normal functioning of the economy as the baby boomers begin to retire into social security and Medicare. And here is Jon Kyl of Arizona, a Senate Republican leader yesterday saying that tax cuts don't have to be paid for (offset by spending decreases)....as Ezra Klein says some are actually for balancing the budget while others use it simply as a reason to cut certain spending and tax cuts.

A balanced budget means the ins match the outs.