Will We Do The Balanced Budget Amendment Right?
By Steven Osborne | Sunday, August 7th, 2011 | Catch-All, PolicyOne of the critical chess pieces in the recent debt limit debate was the Balanced Budget Amendment.
The Republicans felt that they had an opportunity to force the Democrats who had supported the concept of such an amendment in the past to take a vote. This strategy has the very real potential to backfire. As I noted in a post back in January, a Balanced Budget Amendment is a good idea; as long as it is done correctly. As much as I would love to see the government forced to engage in austerity, a budget that is balanced through inflation will only harm the poorest Americans, while a budget balanced via tax increases will harm businesses that create jobs.
As a matter of fact, Democratic Sen. Mark Udall is putting forward his own Balanced Budget Amendment and is hoping to have a vote on it by Dec. 31 of this year. Sen. Udall supports raising taxes in addition to cuts in spending, and apparently his amendment creates a scenario under which limits would be placed on tax cuts, yet large loopholes would exist in regards to government spending.
So while compromise is sometimes necessary, amendments are very delicate things. One needs only to see how government officials have twisted Constitutional language in the past to see how a wrongly worded amendment could be devastating. In other words, no Balanced Budget Amendment is better than a poorly worded one.
This is something to keep in mind as we head into this constitutional discussion.
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About the author
Steven Osborne is a grassroots conservative activist from Central Virginia. He is currently furthering his education at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia. In addition to writing for Bearing Drift he is also a columnist for the Christian Law Journal.
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9 Responses to "Will We Do The Balanced Budget Amendment Right?"
“Will We Do The Balanced Budget Amendment Right?”
Once we exhaust all other possibilities, yes.
But first, would anyone care for a helping of EU contagion, with some U.S. downgrade a la carte?
This crisis lays at the feet of both parties and their conduct over the past 30 years. Enjoy!
I was never a big fan of a Balanced Budget Amendment but I think recent events and the excessive entitlement mentality created by the Left make some budget restraint necessary. Yes I understand that all BBAs are not created equal. But if it were that dangerous wouldn’t we see more evidence in the States? Balanced budget constraints are toxic to leftists. Sure they can try to twist things to their end but even they know that to double taxes would not balance the budget in practice. Are the States with balanced budget amendments in worse shape than those that don’t have them? In the end voters will decide what level of services and taxes they want If voters want to create another Denmark here I wouldn’t be happy but far better than another Greece or Zimbabwe. The odds are though that we will end up to the right of Europe.
Since Italy pledged to pass a constitutional balanced budget amendment to keep their domestic and foreign investors from panicking, maybe we can borrow their model since our leftist Democrats seem to think that we should be like Europe. Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi has been talking to Obama and told him that with the amendment, a balanced budget could be achieved in 2013 “by speeding up reform of Italy’s extensive, and expensive, social welfare system, which includes national health care and generous retirement payments.”
So Obama is lauding actions by the Italian Premier that are the same as the goals of the American Tea Party, but then is trying to throw the US Tea Party into a Gitmo prison? I’m anxious to see what explanations by our leftist Democrats and who they will blame when Italy’s credit rating finally rises above ours.
@ valentinus
I see what you are saying, however, the States cannot print their own money, and the Feds can.
Maybe I’m missing something but debasement of the currency seems independent of the govt account balance. Bernanke has reduced the value of the dollar compared to foreign currencies but that wouldn’t change any relationship, i.e. a balanced budget, denominated in dollars.
TJ says “our leftist Democrats seem to think that we should be like Europe.”
Respectfully I think you are behind the times. The countries I hear Obama and his band of leftists praise are China Venezuela and Cuba.
val, just pointing out the irony of Obama talking to the Italians about their balanced budget amendment with a quote justifying the move from their Premier who was either borrowing from or parroting our Tea Party. Flash to the present and I see David Axelrod on a Sunday show blaming the Tea Party for everything from tempting Adam in the Garden of Eden to our first credit downgrade on Obama’s watch. The leftists ain’t very happy right now, and are double unhappy since their guy is going down in the history books with this on his resume.
@ valentinus
I was discussing the possibility of the Feds printing more money in order to pay obligations in the budget…or borrowing money to pay those obligations and then subsequently printing more money to pay the creditors, thus cheating them, which is unjust.
Regardless, it would debase the currency and impact the poor.
Any way you slice it
“The United States can pay any debt it has because we can always print money to do that. So there is zero probability of default” said Greenspan on NBC’s Meet the Press.
Here’s your managed economy. Here’s your central bank board of wise men at work. Someone tell me, what is the difference between a central banker and a counterfeiter?
Fiat currencies always collapse. This is what the endgame of YOUR fiat currency looks like. Do you understand?
Can we do it better next time?
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