A fiscal crisis threatens to engulf the federal budget, jeopardizing the health and vigor of the American economy. When the next president and Congress take office in January 2009, they will face one crucial question that has been almost absent from the current election campaign: how to close the enormous long-term gap between projected federal spending and revenues. In a paper released in April 2008, some of the nation’s top economists and budget experts argue that the first step toward restoring budget responsibility is to reform the budget decision process so that Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid--the major drivers of escalating deficits--are no longer on autopilot.

Could Congress and the president agree to explicit, sustainable long-term budgets for the three largest entitlement programs? Would a budget trigger that automatically cut spending or raised taxes be an effective enforcement mechanism? Would this process reform initiate an honest public debate on competing policy priorities? AEI’s Joseph Antos will moderate a panel that includes the coordinators of the project, Stuart Butler of the Heritage Foundation and Isabel Sawhill of the Brookings Institution. A discussion of the possible impact of their proposal and its chances for success will follow with Robert Greenstein of the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, Wendell Primus of the office of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and  former representative Jim Moody of Americans for Generational Equity.