Agreed that spending cuts in out years (the ensuing 9 years of a 10 year plan) will not happen. Any session of Congress is not bound by any thing passed in a prior session (other than a subsequently enacted Amendment of the Constitution), so it will go away quick and the spending problem will not be solved.
On the other hand if you could snap your fingers and go to an immediately balanced budget by cutting spending (which, with today’s economy is 43% greater than revenues) you would exaggerate the present problem with unemployment (if you cut programs and entitlements rapidly enough to balance - you’d end up shrinking the economy abruptly.)
So, the solution has to be a balanced budget amendment which phases in over 5-7 years, allowing for the economy to recover as spending is cut.
In my day, studying economics in college and graduate school, there were estimates for the the multiplier effect of each additional $ of government spending on total GNP. Whatever the multiplier coefficient estimate was before Obama arrived, it has been proven to be a rather different value since he started driving the bus. Or the error term has become huge. Just think of all the claims Christina Romer made when this Administration was in transition. What an epic failure of policy design!
Was it a number less than zero? OK, probably not.
Anyway, agreed phasing in of cuts is necessary even though that invites fudging in subsequent years. I think Boehner may have been on to something with a trigger if cuts are not made.