This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Wednesday, August 3rd, 2022.

I'm Caleb Brown.

When Congress began baking endless spending increases into its budgeting process, deficits as far as the eye could see became almost inevitable.

So says economist Ed Lopez of Western Carolina University.

We spoke in Massachusetts and June.

How do you define the modern budget era?

The modern budget era, first of all,

is anchored to when the modern budget era begins,

which is 1974 and forward. It's a problem, the modern budget era problem,

firstly because we have over that roughly 50 years a pattern of chronic deficits happening every year except for four years

and that's happening in normal times as well as in emergency times.

And as a consequence of that, we have rising levels of public debt year to year throughout

that 50-year period.

But interestingly, there's a second component to the Modern Budget Era problem, which is over this same 50 years, we have major legislative attempts by past Congresses to control and instill fiscal discipline into subsequent Congresses.

So the problem is taking two of these together.

We've had chronic deficits and mounting debt despite efforts to do the opposite.

What were some of those attempts?

Graham Redmond?

That's one of the major ones.

Graham Redmond is the source for what folks who follow these issues

recognizes sequestration.

That is the idea that if a future Congress does not

...