I asked an AI to explain PayGo:

Overview of PAYGO in the 1990s

Pay-As-You-Go (PAYGO) was a budgetary rule established in the early 1990s to promote fiscal discipline in Congress. It required that any new spending or tax cuts be offset by either cuts in other spending or increases in revenue, ensuring that such measures did not increase the federal deficit. This system was part of a broader effort to address the significant budget deficits that the U.S. was facing at the time.

The initial PAYGO regimen was enacted in 1990 and was designed to prevent future Congresses from reversing fiscal agreements without accountability. If new legislation increased projected deficits, it would trigger a "sequestration," leading to automatic, across-the-board spending cuts in non-exempt mandatory programs

. This mechanism was effective in maintaining budgetary discipline, contributing to the budget surpluses experienced in the late 1990s

.

Effectiveness and Challenges

During its operation from 1990 to 2002, PAYGO was credited with helping to reduce the federal deficit significantly. Budget experts generally agree that it worked well during this period, as it was supplemented by caps on discretionary spending, which further reinforced fiscal responsibility

. However, the effectiveness of PAYGO diminished over time as Congress began to find ways to circumvent its rules, leading to a gradual erosion of its impact.

Why PAYGO is Not Widely Used Today

The original PAYGO rules effectively ended in 2002, and while there have been attempts to reinstate similar measures, such as the Statutory Pay-As-You-Go Act of 2010, these have not been consistently enforced or adhered to

. The political landscape has changed significantly since the 1990s, with increasing polarization making bipartisan agreements on fiscal matters more challenging. Additionally, the growing national debt and the complexity of modern fiscal policy have led to debates about the appropriateness and feasibility of strict PAYGO rules in today's economic environment

.

In summary, while PAYGO was a successful tool for fiscal discipline in the 1990s, its decline can be attributed to political challenges and changing economic conditions that have made strict adherence to such rules more difficult in contemporary Congress.

Basically, it failed because Congress decided to stop enforcing it. If we could get people into elected office who actually care about this country and want to actually balance the budget for real instead of just a slide presentation during election cycles, we could bring it back and it would work again. But I've given up on that happening.