Here is an interesting article about the FIA's position on the subject of budget caps:
Q & A with FIA's Tony Purnell
Also, I was reading a post over @ Speedvision...errr...SpeedTV forums, that was talking about how this all came up. Basically the FIA asked the teams what to do about cost cutting and capping, and asked for their input like 2 years ago. Afterbeing asked repeatedly the teams never replied with any ideas. so the FIA went drastic to get their attention. Apparently it worked. Maybe a little too well.
You can read the post
here