The Trouble With Sunsets The Trouble With Sunsets, Paul Krugman, The New York Times Even in our personal lives, everyone knows that it’s much harder to start doing something good than it is to continue a good routine. I don’t decide every morning whether I feel like working out; I’ve made morning workouts my baseline, to be canceled only in exceptional circumstances. (For younger readers: Staying in halfway decent shape later in life isn’t easy. Also, you kids, get off my lawn.) In much the same way, the Senate doesn’t have to decide every five years to actively continue these programs that many older Americans deeply rely on. For decades they’ve been our baseline, without the periodic meltdowns engendered by the debt ceiling and other recurring deadlines that require our legislators to actually come together and do something. One of the most famous results in behavioral economics is that workers are far more likely to make use of financially advantageous retirement plans when they must opt out in order not to be enrolled, as opposed to having to opt in, even though the cost of opting in is trivial. So even if politics weren’t a factor, someone who actually wanted to preserve Medicare and Social Security wouldn’t require that Congress opt back in to those programs every five years.