This excerpt originally appeared in National Review Online on April 27, 2012.

I don’t how these caps alone could truly control the explosion in entitlement spending, even if they were applied to the entire budget. Once the pressure becomes too strong and the spending explodes due to large number of people retiring and signing up for Medicare, lawmakers will have an incentive to increase the caps or do away with them all together. Unless we can credibly tie their hands, I doubt that the caps would achieve very much. Then if that’s the case, caps are no substitutes to reforming entitlement programs.