MEGAN MCARDLE: Get Congress Back To Legislating, Not Just Budgeting.

Megan McArdle: You told me recently that many of our current problems in the legislative process stem from the budget process enacted in the early 1970s, which is now breaking down under a new political reality. What happened to the budget process in the 1970s?

Yuval Levin: I think that’s the right place to start, because it will help us see what isn’t working. I’m a believer in the Chesterton’s Fence approach to public problems. When something isn’t working, don’t just think about how it needs to change but think about why it is the way it is.

The 1974 budget process was developed in response to a specific set of problems, basically revolving around the frustration of a Democratic Congress at being constantly outmaneuvered by a Republican president in the budget process

The main problem was the practice of “impoundment” by which the Nixon administration just refused to spend money on things it disagreed with even after Congress appropriated money. The ’74 act ended that practice. But Congress decided to also rebalance the budget process in general to empower Congress. Their sense was that the president won budget battles because he had a disciplined, organized, professional budget bureaucracy serving him, while Congress was disorganized and undisciplined. They wanted a process that would make Congress function a little more like an executive when it came to budgeting.

So the 1974 Congressional Budget and Impoundment Act created a new budget process. It was a huge step forward for Congress, which had always been in a position of disadvantage against the president — who since the 1920s had had professional economists running a budget agency. When Congress needed budget projections, it had to ask the White House, and could never really trust the White House, especially with a president of the opposite party. The ’74 Act changed that.

And then things went south.