Automatic budget cuts have spotty record

The AP reports:

Congress and President Barack Obama are proposing ways to automatically trigger budget savings if they can't rein in deficits the old-fashioned way, by enacting laws to cut spending or raise taxes. Similar efforts in the past have a spotty record.

The last quarter-century has seen plenty of missed deficit and spending targets and inventive evasions of budget curbs. This is because the same legislators who put in place those budget constraints can pass laws to ignore them.