Budgetary Reform and Formal Modeling: A Comment on Gabel and Hager

In a recent article, Gabel and Hager argue that the line-itemveto and the balanced budget amendment promote (BBA) and mayincrease pork-barrel spending. In their discussion of thebalanced budget amendment, Gabel and Hager present one exampleto support their claim. I demonstrate that the effect of a BBAin their model is highly contingent on parameter values, andthat their results hold only for a specific set of parametervalues. Further, in a generalized model where the balancedbudget amendment is crafted endogenously, the BBA that isenacted has the effect of either decreasing spending orkeeping it constant.