The flexible freeze is just as realistic today as it was in 1978 - perhaps more so.

And today, our calculations show, it would still take about four years for a flexible freeze to eliminate the deficit.

But in today's economy a flexible freeze would not yield meaningful results for at least a year or two.

But for precisely those reasons, the flexible freeze makes sense.

George Bush's "flexible freeze" is less a budget proposal than a political tactic.

Yet his plan for a flexible freeze on spending sounds sensible.

He won with a campaign commitment to use a flexible freeze and no new taxes to narrow the deficit.

Then he said a flexible freeze might be "one part of the solution," but that it probably would not be enough.

The flexible freeze would only cut the deficit a little more rapidly.

The catch is that the "flexible freeze" probably wouldn't work even if Congress were to swallow it whole.