I support a balanced budget amendment but it will never happen.
The last time that such an amendment got to the floor the senate, with a Republican majority, were unable to get the votes.
The U.S. actually started life with a balanced budget requirement AND term limits. Both were such a disaster that they were thrown out when America went from the Articles of Confederation to the U.S. Constitution.
The most recent Republican proposal for a balanced budget amendment is a non-starter too. It exempts military expenditures during time of conflict. Any conflict. Since the War Powers Act was passed in the early 1970s we have not gone a whole 12 months without conflict somewhere.
For a balanced budget amendment to be taken seriously there must be no loopholes or black pits (like endless conflict and war). If you want it then it must be paid for, and raising taxes automatically to pay for any bill that is overdue needs to be in the package.
Of course it will also take 3/4s of the states to pass such an amendment and they have 7 years to dawdle. Most states know balanced budgets are almost impossible — good only for political theatre.
Conservatives are now telling Obama that he needs a Plan B if he doesn’t want to see the government run out of money. Plan B seems to be ‘you endorse/propose a balanced budget amendment that meets our requirements and we’ll make a deal’.
Unless the Republicans come up with something other than what they proposed earlier this year then Obama should hand the House Republicans back the loaded gun with only one bullet in it and say: Here, you use it. You are the House. You do what you’ve got to do. I’ll consider signing it after you debate it and take a by name vote on it.
