As the 112th Congress gets to work, Virginia Congressman Bob Goodlatte has announced that he plans to introduce the Balanced Budget Amendment, with the assistance of fellow Virginia Republican Scott Rigell and the support of Majority Leader Eric Cantor:
We have a spending addiction in Washington, D.C., and it has proven to be an addiction that Congress cannot control on its own and which is bringing dire consequences…. We have gone in a few short years from a deficit of billions of dollars to a deficit of trillions of dollars. The government is borrowing money at an unprecedented pace, which presents serious risks of massive inflation. Our national debt recently surpassed an astonishing $14 trillion and continues to rapidly increase, along with the waste associated with paying the interest on that debt.
Congress’ spending addiction is not a partisan one…. It reaches across the aisle and afflicts both parties, which is why neither party has been able to master it. A balanced budget amendment to our Constitution will once and for all require Congress to rein in this out-of-control behavior.
With the election of 64 new Republican representatives–many of them members of the Tea Party–Rep. Goodlatte and the House leadership are optimistic about the proposed amendment’s chances of receiving the required two-thirds vote in the House. If, however, the Balanced Budget Amendment could not receive the support of two-thirds of the Republican-controlled Senate during the 104th Congress (it fell one vote short) when it was first proposed as a plank of the “Contract with America,” is there a realistic chance that it will receive 66 votes in the current Congress’ Democrat-controlled Senate? For two reasons, the answer is “perhaps.”
First, the political environment has changed as recent fiscal crises in Greece and Ireland, coupled with the large (and still growing) federal deficit and fiscal mismanagement in the states, have made ordinary Americans more concerned about the federal budget and government spending in general.
Second, the Republicans have a plan for advancing the Balanced Budget Amendment: make its passage part of a deal to raise the debt-ceiling. Says Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), a proponent of the proposed amendment:
I can’t imagine voting to raise the debt ceiling unless we’re going to change our ways in Washington, Paul said. I am proposing that we link to raising the debt ceiling — that we link a balanced budget rule, an ironclad rule that they can’t evade.
Since voters sent numerous men and women to Washington, or their respective state capitals, for the express purpose of cutting spending and getting the nation’s (and the states’) fiscal houses in order, 2011 might be the best chance we will have for at least another decade to finally pass the Balanced Budget Amendment–and Virginians are leading the charge.
