One 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.
