If someone were to make a movie about the federal budget process (don't hold your breath), Congress would be cast as the psycho who scrawls a taunting plea at the scene of his latest murder: "Stop me before I kill again!"

Year after year, members talk about how awful the budget deficit and the national debt are, how Social Security and Medicare are headed for bankruptcy, and how something has to be done. And year after year, they either do nothing or make the situation worse.

This year's plot has a new twist, but one with a predictable ending. Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va., wants to convene a bipartisan commission to figure out how to control the deficit — and force Congress to vote on the commission's plan or an alternative.

Supporters of the idea point out that despite the generally sad history of commissions, some have worked. In 1983, Congress approved a bipartisan commission's plan to rescue Social Security from imminent insolvency. And commissions have successfully provided political cover for tough decisions to close obsolete military bases.

But no commission has ever produced action on a problem as sprawling and politically radioactive as the entire federal budget, and magical mechanisms have also failed. Exhibit A is the "Gramm-Rudman" budget-balancing law, adopted by Congress in 1985 to force automatic cuts if the deficit exceeded targets. Congress often met the targets with bookkeeping tricks or postponed them.

What has worked, and can again, is strong presidential leadership.

Worried about huge new deficit projections and a wavering economy, the first President Bush convened a budget summit with Congressional leaders in 1990. Negotiators produced — and Congress enacted — a serious package of spending cuts, tax increases and tough new budget rules.

President Clinton repeated the exercise in 1993 and 1997. Thanks to these efforts and a strong economy, the federal budget was balanced in 1998 for the first time in 29 years, and it stayed that way for the next three.

The second President Bush squandered the surplus with large tax cuts, big post-9/11 spending, and massive borrowing for the Iraq war and other programs. He never made a serious effort to get the deficit under control, and so far, President Obama has followed that path. His preliminary budget, released in February, projects deficits even more massive than Bush's for the next decade. We'll see Thursday, when the administration rolls out its formal 2010 plan, whether Obama has gotten any more responsible about bringing revenue and spending into long-term balance.

Wolf is right about the dire need to do so, but his commission is no panacea. Ways to reduce the deficit are well known. What's needed is the political will to make it happen. Without a president and congressional leaders willing to take charge, history says that nothing else will matter.