Republican scheme; project image of Balancing Budgets while Increasing Deficits and Chaos.

Surreal and every bit Republican, all the while state legislators are pounding their fiscal chests demanding a federal balanced budget amendment, they're also trying to add $1.7 trillion to the federal deficit with tax cuts. It's no different in Wisconsin...Jakes Economic TA Funhouse:

...that move and other refinancings mean that General Fund taxes needed to pay for these and other bonds will jump by $150 million for the budget after this one, helping to drive the structural deficit up to $1 billion for 2019-21. And a check of the debt maturity figures in the CAFR shows that the amount that we already have to pay due to Walker’s can-kicking of debt stays at those high levels for much of the 2020s. So when you look at the record of the increasing GAAP deficit and overall debt combined with the budget tricks that we will be paying a price for in the coming years, and it makes all of WisGOP’s whining about federal debt in their Article V ALEC bill ring hollow, doesn’t it?

Wisconsin's move to mindlessly amend the US Constitution was the brainchild of Republican State Sen. Chris Kapenga, a member - believe it or not - of the "CPA caucus." 

Wisconsin has joined the growing list of states calling for an Article V convention to amend the U.S. Constitution ... focus on a balanced budget amendment to rein in government debt ... makes Wisconsin the 28th state ... A total of 34 states are needed. Senators also passed a separate measure that would spell out who would serve as delegates; seven of Wisconsin's nine delegates would be Republican.

But experts say there would be no way to restrict the agenda. "Once those delegates are called to the convention, they are the supreme leaders of the land in rewriting the United States Constitution," said Sen. Kathleen Vinehout, D-Alma, "and all of those liberties and freedoms that we hold dear … all of that could be rewritten." 

Wisconsin has become the ultra-right wing mega force in fringe politics over the last 8 years. This happened back in December of 2013...:

The resolution has long been a priority of Sen. Chris Kapenga, R-Delafield, "I don't have a lot of faith in Washington getting this done." Saturday’s Mount Vernon meeting was organized by Indiana state Sen. David Long and Wisconsin Rep. Chris Kapenga. The Blaze website reported that nearly 100 right-wing legislators from 32 states met in Virginia over the weekend as the first steps toward turning this fringe fantasy into reality. Saturday’s meeting represents the most recent attempt by legislators to discuss seriously the possibility of adding amendments to the Constitution through a convention.

Yes, adding amendments. Republicans are saying that won't happen, but there it is. Simply put, a balanced budget amendment introduces chaos in federal budgeting during times of disaster, war, and recessions. Plus, we started balancing the budget without a constitutional convention during the Clinton presidency. But revenue surpluses, according to Republicans, means over taxation leading to tax cuts, like under Bush:

Between 1998 and 2000, President Bill Clinton’s Treasury Department paid off more than $360 billion in debt. As a result of 115 straight months of economic expansion that began after an increase in the top income tax rate — which was virulently opposed by the right — the huge deficits left by 12 years of Republican rule had been transformed into a surplus.

Within months after taking office George W. Bush had begun to turn that surplus back into deficits that grew and grew, despite funding two wars on emergency supplemental bills that were not figured into the budget.

Vice-President Cheney laughed off the promises that the Bush tax breaks would pay for themselves and the budget would be balanced: “Reagan proved deficits don’t matter.” But deficits do matter to Republicans…whenever there is a Democratic president.

Republicans are quick to remind us how popular a balanced budget amendment is to the American public; over 70 percent favor it. Heck, even 66 percent of Democrats liked the idea. But in that same survey,  Americans also loved tax hikes, but that's never brought up by those same Republicans. The first column supports, the second opposes:

Balanced Budget Amendment Disaster pushed by Wisconsin's Clueless CPA Caucus' Chris Kapenga!!!

While doing research on what it would mean to have a balanced budget amendment, I turned up this interesting statement from 2012 at the National Memo:

The Lie: Republicans have a plan to balance the federal budget and care deeply about fiscal responsibility.

Backing that statement up was easy:

The Truth: The last Republican president who ever balanced the budget was Dwight Eisenhower.

Between 1998 and 2000, President Bill Clinton’s Treasury Department paid off more than $360 billion in debt. As a result of 115 straight months of economic expansion that began after an increase in the top income tax rate — which was virulently opposed by the right — the huge deficits left by 12 years of Republican rule had been transformed into a surplus.

Within months after taking office George W. Bush had begun to turn that surplus back into deficits that grew and grew, despite funding two wars on emergency supplemental bills that were not figured into the budget.

Vice-President Cheney laughed off the promises that the Bush tax breaks would pay for themselves and the budget would be balanced: “Reagan proved deficits don’t matter.” But deficits do matter to Republicans…whenever there is a Democratic president.

Hey Look Everybody, We're good with Money, We want to Balance the Budget!!! Phony baloney Wisconsin Republicans are now ballyhooing their attempt to become the 30th state to ask for a balanced budget amendment via a constitutional convention. It's all show, especially when you consider all the cuts Republicans want to make locally and on a federal level that will just end up costing taxpayers much more money in the long run. Penny wise, pound foolish...you bet. 

It should be embarrassing that CPA caucus loudmouth Rep. Chris Kapenga thinks the balanced budget amendment is a good idea. It calls into question his credibility, first, and says more about his blind ideological positions: 

The Senate sponsor of the resolutions, Chris Kapenga, R-Delafield, called them “one step further to putting our nation’s house in order. Debt was the downfall of most civilizations. We’ve never seen this type of debt before.” Assembly Speaker Robin Vos has signed on to the resolution requesting a constitutional convention.

The arguments against one of the dumbest political movements isn't connecting logically with Republicans:

Opponents, Democratic lawmakers and left-leaning advocacy groups as well as the John Birch Society, a far-right advocacy group say a balanced budget amendment would make it harder for the federal government to respond to economic downturns and natural disasters.

"It's like the economy has cancer and you won't let the economy get chemotherapy or radiation, it's like the economy has diabetes and you won't give the economy insulin — you'd be killing the economy," said Matt Rothschild, executive director of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign.

Many economists say federal deficit spending can be necessary to fund wars, combat economic recessions or respond to natural disasters. A balanced budget requirement could severely hamstring the federal government’s ability to respond to those situations, critics say.

Scapegoats and Someone to Blame: Besides the Republican driven deregulation of Wall Street that gave us the Great Recession, these "concerned" flip-floppers are the ones that built up our deficits:

Using the deficit as a battering ram, the GOP pushed for the rapid adoption of a Balanced Budget Amendment to the Constitution, which would ignore the true causes of the deficit—tax breaks, the wars and an unfunded Medicare expansion—and demand huge cuts to Medicaid, Pell Grants and every service the government provides.

Keep in mind, it took me under an hour to uncover many of the reasons why a balanced budget amendment would be an economic disaster for the country. Why didn't our Republican "CPA Caucus" spend a little time boning up on the issues? You can't tell me the following list of bad outcomes doesn't raise some extremely serious questions?:

When the economy slows, federal revenues decline or grow more slowly and spending on unemployment insurance and other social programs increases, causing deficits to rise ... the amendment would force policymakers to cut spending, raise taxes, or both. That would launch a vicious spiral of bad economic and fiscal policy ... The fact that states must balance their budgets every year makes it even more important that the federal government not also face this requirement and thus further impair a faltering economy. 

Raise other problems ... Social Security could not draw down its reserves from previous years to pay benefits in a later year but, instead, could be forced to cut benefits even if it had ample balances in its trust funds, as it does today. The same would be true for military retirement and civil service retirement programs. Nor could the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation or the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation respond quickly to bank or pension fund failures by using their assets to pay deposit or pension insurance, unless they could do so without causing the budget to slip out of balance.

The amendment’s proponents often argue that, because states and families must balance their budgets each year, the federal government also should do so. But this analogy is a false one. Families borrow — they take out mortgages to buy a home or student loans to send a child to college. They also draw down savings when times are tight to cover expenses that exceed their current incomes. The proposed constitutional amendment would bar the federal government from making worthy investments in the same way.

And then there's the enforcement mechanisms...

Suppose the budget is out of balance. What happens? Would the President have the unilateral power to impose balance? Suppose, for example, that a reconciliation bill designed to balance the budget is defeated at the end of the congressional session. Can the President unilaterally declare that it is law nonetheless? Can he instead make across-the-board cuts in all spending, including Social Security, Medicare, and defense, without congressional action? Can he select which programs to cut unilaterally? Can he impose across-the-board, or selected, increases in tax rates? How about across-the-board or selected reductions in tax expenditures?

What about the Supreme Court? If the budget is not balanced, can the Court declare a defeated reconciliation bill to be law? Can it override a presidential veto of a reconciliation bill? If it cannot enact a defeated or vetoed law, can it declare that a bill allowing a deficit as having been enacted if it received a majority vote but not a three-fifths vote? Alternatively, can it invalidate appropriation bills, in reverse chronological order? If that seems arbitrary and unworkable, can it order across-the-board cuts in all appropriations, or entitlement programs, or tax expenditures? Can it impose across-the-board surtaxes? Can it hold Congress or the President in contempt and possibly jail them if they ultimately do not act?

If federal courts award claims or judgments against the United States, as they often do, but the costs would unbalance the budget and require an increase in the debt limit, what action would the courts take?

Walker hopes to Wreak Havoc by Rewriting Constitution, passing a Balanced Budget Amendment.

The odd game of one party's egomaniacal majority redefining, even changing, the Constitution to fit their ideological agenda runs counter to their claims of being "strict constitutionalists." Thus, 32 Republican states have passed, and are still pushing for a "constitutional convention." They just need two more:

As laid out in Article V of the Constitution, two-thirds of the country's state legislatures can call for a convention to amend the Constitution. Any amendments passed in such a convention would then have to be ratified by three-fourths of the states to take effect. it could be used to pass a balanced-budget amendment and to impose term limits on members of Congress and the judiciary.  

Republicans now hope to take advantage of the myth they've created around themselves of being fiscally responsible, by inserting the downright stupid "balanced budget" amendment into our Constitution. More on why this is so dumb is below.

Blissfully getting behind the numbskull ideas of a constitutional convention and balanced budget amendment? Who else, Scott Walker. It's not like he's has had deep thoughts on these subjects; these are right out of ALEC, so pushing it requires a minimal amount understanding by Walker:

Walker: "The reason I support that is I believe, like our state and other states, that we should have a requirement to balance the budget that you can’t get around." 

Yup, a simple solution for a massively complex set of problems, with no escape hatches to "get around" it (more on that highlighted below). The devastating consequences don't bother Walker in the least, because let's face it, he's shown sociopathic tendencies before. 

So what could happen? Glad you asked. :

EPI: A balanced budget amendment would mandate perverse actions in the face of recessions. In economic downturns, tax revenues fall and some outlays, such as unemployment benefits, rise. These so-called built-in stabilizers increase the deficit but limit declines of after-tax income and purchasing power. To keep the budget balanced every year would aggravate recessions. Unlike many state constitutions, which permit borrowing to finance capital expenditures, the federal budget makes no distinction between capital investments and current outlays. Private businesses and households borrow all the time to finance capital spending.

A balanced budget amendment would prevent federal borrowing to finance expenditures for infrastructure, education, research and development, environmental protection, and other investment vital to the nation's future well being.

A balanced budget amendment would invite Congress to enact unfunded mandates, requiring states, localities, and private businesses to do what it cannot finance itself. It also invites dubious accounting maneuvers (such as selling more public lands and other assets and counting the proceeds as deficit-reducing revenues), and other budgetary gimmicks.

Disputes on the meaning of budget balance would likely end up in the courts, resulting in judge-made economic policy. So would disputes about how to balance an unbalanced budget when Congress lacks the votes to inflict painful cuts.

Balanced budget amendment proposals typically contain escape hatches, but in peacetime they require super-majorities of each House to adopt an unbalanced budget or to raise the debt limit. These provisions are recipes for gridlock.

An overall spending cap, which is part of some proposed amendments, would further limit Congress’s ability to fight recessions through either the built-in automatic stabilizers or deliberate changes in fiscal policy. Even during expansions, a binding spending cap could harm economic growth because increases in high-return investments — even those fully paid for with additional revenue — would be deemed unconstitutional if not offset by other spending reductions. A binding spending cap also would mean that emergency spending (for example on natural disasters) would necessitate reductions elsewhere, leading to increased volatility in the funding for non-emergency programs.

A Constitutional amendment is not needed to balance the budget. The budget not only attained balance, but actually recorded surpluses and reduced debt, for four consecutive years after Congress enacted budget plans in the 1990s that reduced spending growth and raised revenues. This was done under the existing Constitution, and it can be done again.

No other major nation hobbles its economy with a balanced-budget mandate. There is no need to put the nation in an economic straitjacket. Let the President and Congress make fiscal policies in response to national needs and priorities as the authors of our Constitution wisely provided.

Mix in a Growing National Debt: With Trump's proposed tax cuts, not much different than Paul Ryan's, economists have projected a deficit increase of $5 trillion. That would result in a Republican move to dramatically cut all spending. And that would lead the US to what Naomi Klein called the "Shock Doctrine."

That practitioners of the shock doctrine tend to seek a blank slate on which to create their ideal free market economies, which inevitably requires a usually violent destruction of the existing economic order.

As for the question of a constitutional conventions rewriting the Constitution, Walker has another simple but definitive response: 

"Some have said, 'Well if you do that, doesn’t it open the floodgates to all sorts of wild ideas?' And the answer to that is no," 

Constitutional scholar and wreaker of havoc Gov. Scott Walker is wrong about that too, but why complicate things:

“Once you open up the Constitution to change at a convention, then you can change anything in the Constitution,” said Michael Leachman at the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a think tank that has written about the dangers of a balanced budget amendment. “It’s theoretically possible.”

Possible? Just to be clear:

Jenni Dye, research director for the liberal group One Wisconsin Now, said Walker and state Republicans "cannot be trusted with our Constitution."

"We have already watched as this gang decimated voting rights using state law, just imagine the damage they could do if they start rewriting our Constitution. They will put party before patriotism, and they do not care what they break on their quest to permanently consolidate power. If they are allowed to break the Constitution itself, we won't be able to put democracy back together."

Republicans jump off cliff with a Balanced Budget Amendment, taking us all with them...

This post if for my conservative friend in Milwaukee who's hotly following the possibility of a right wing sponsored constitutional convention pushing a balanced budget amendment, one of three items.

I told him how that would be a disaster, but he retorted "JOHN DON'T GIVE ME TALKING POINTS I don't want to hear talking points." Why are conservatives so obsessed with typing capital letters? So I researched the chaos that would be ensue by this simpleton solution to a dramatically complex process of government. Did I ever tell you he hates government?

From the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a list of outrageously nasty consequences that surprise, locks in benefits to the wealthy while doing away with programs for the poor and middle class:

A Constitutional Balanced Budget Amendment Threatens Great Economic Damage: The amendment would force policymakers to cut spending, raise taxes, or both just when the economy is weak or already in recession -- the exact opposite of what good economic policy would advise.

Rather than allowing the "automatic stabilizers" of lower tax collections and higher unemployment and other benefits to cushion a weak economy, the amendment would force policymakers to cut spending, raise taxes, or both. That would launch a vicious spiral of bad economic and fiscal policy: a weak economy would lead to higher deficits, which would force policymakers to cut spending or raise taxes more, which would weaken the economy further. The director of the Congressional Budget Office and one of the nation's most respected experts on fiscal policy -- explained: "[I]f it worked [a constitutional balanced budget amendment] would undermine the stabilizing role of the federal government."

The fact that states must balance their budgets every year -- no matter how the economy is performing - makes it even more important that the federal government not also face this requirement … requirement that federal spending in any year must be offset by revenues collected in that same year.

Social Security could not draw down its reserves from previous years to pay benefits in a later year but, instead, could be forced to cut benefits even if it had ample balances in its trust funds, as it does today … it would essentially be unconstitutional for Social Security to draw down these savings to pay promised benefits. Instead, benefits could have to be cut, because all spending would have to be covered by tax revenues collected during that same year. Here, too, the balanced budget amendment would make it unconstitutional for the FDIC and the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation to use their assets to pay deposit or pension insurance since doing so generally would constitute "deficit spending." 

It would undercut all U.S. government insurance and loan guarantees. Those range from the "full faith" backing by the U.S. government to pay interest on Treasury securities to deposit insurance, pension insurance, FHA loans, small business loans, flood insurance, and the nuclear power industry's liability insurance under the Price-Anderson Act.

Nor could the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation or the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation respond quickly to bank or pension fund failures by using their assets to pay deposit or pension insurance, unless they could do so without causing the budget to slip out of balance.

While states must balance their operating budgets, they can -- and do -- borrow for capital projects. Families often borrow, as well, such as when they take out mortgages to buy a home or loans to send a child to college. The proposed constitutional amendment would bar the federal government from making worthy investments in the same way.

And it would serve to protect the more than $1 trillion a year in "tax expenditures" -- subsidies provided to individuals and corporations through the tax code. Tax expenditures predominantly help well-to-do Americans, who tend to get most of their federal subsidies through the tax code, as opposed to low- and moderate-income Americans, who get most of theirs on the spending side of the budget.

The total federal budget -- including capital investments -- would have to be balanced every year; no borrowing to finance infrastructure or other investments to boost future economic growth would be allowed. And if the federal government ran a surplus one year, it could not draw it down the next year to help balance the budget.

I know this is a little long, but bear with me, it's a big deal:

If a parent has low or moderate income, she may be able to get a federal subsidy through a spending program to help cover her child care costs. If a parent is higher on the income scale, she still receives a government subsidy that reduces her child care costs, but it is a tax credit. It is difficult to justify making the tax-code subsidy sacrosanct and the program subsidy a deficit-reduction target merely because one is delivered through a "spending" program and the other is delivered through the tax code.

Bar federal spending from exceeding 18 percent of GDP in any year. To hit that level would require draconian cuts. Medicare would be converted to a voucher system under which, the CBO said, beneficiaries' out-of-pocket health-care costs would nearly triple by 2030 … federal Medicaid funding in 2030 would be 49 percent lower.

Another way to look at an 18 percent of GDP limit -- or alternative proposals that would cap federal spending at 20 percent or 20.6 percent of GDP -- is to examine federal spending under President Ronald Reagan. Under Reagan, who secured deep domestic budget cuts at the start of his tenure, federal expenditures averaged 22 percent of GDP. Moreover, that spending level occurred at a time when no members of the baby boom generation had yet retired. It also occurred at a time when total health-care spending in the United States (including the private sector) was one-third lower as a share of GDP than it is today. This also was before policymakers created a new category of homeland security spending in response to the September 11 terrorist attacks. And it predated the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which have led to increases in veterans' health-care costs that will endure for decades.

Finally:

Questions Abound About Who Would Enforce the Balanced Budget Requirement -- And How They Would Do It: Suppose the budget is out of balance. What happens? Would the President have the unilateral power to impose balance? Suppose, for example, that a reconciliation bill designed to balance the budget is defeated at the end of the congressional session. Can the President unilaterally declare that it is law nonetheless? Can he instead make across-the-board cuts in all spending, including Social Security, Medicare, and defense, without congressional action? Can he select which programs to cut unilaterally? Can he impose across-the-board, or selected, increases in tax rates? How about across-the-board or selected reductions in tax expenditures?

What about the Supreme Court? If the budget is not balanced, can the Court declare a defeated reconciliation bill to be law? Can it override a presidential veto of a reconciliation bill? If it cannot enact a defeated or vetoed law, can it declare that a bill allowing a deficit as having been enacted if it received a majority vote but not a three-fifths vote? Alternatively, can it invalidate appropriation bills, in reverse chronological order? If that seems arbitrary and unworkable, can it order across-the-board cuts in all appropriations, or entitlement programs, or tax expenditures? Can it impose across-the-board surtaxes? Can it hold Congress or the President in contempt and possibly jail them if they ultimately do not act?

Republicans wrong on Term Limits and Balanced Budget Amendment.

If you ask conservatives who regularly read this site and other more liberal bloggers, you'd think we were partisan or something. But really, this and other sites continue to suggest solutions, instead of just whining about the problem.

Two guys who have been right on so many levels, Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein, took a look at a few "solutions" from the right will only make things worse. There take on "term limits" is the one that stands out. Dumb Ron Johnson recently said in an interview that Mitt Romney told him how he would only be president one term, get what he wanted done, and move on. That didn't sit well with me, and Mann and Ornstein's trashing of term limits explains why:

We’ve all heard the laments — we’ve made some of them ourselves — that Washington is broken. Here are (some) much-praised solutions we should avoid:

Term limits will save us: Term limits, we’re told, would replace them with citizen-lawmakers who cared less about reelection and more about acting on behalf of their fellow citizens — thus restoring Congress to its intended role as the citadel of deliberative democracy.

Does it work? Instead of channeling ambition in the right, public-interest direction, term limits have the opposite effect: New lawmakers immediately begin planning for ways to reach the next level, or to find lucrative lobbying jobs when they are term-limited out. They have no incentive to do things for the long-term and no regard for maintaining their own institutions. With the loss of expertise among senior lawmakers, power devolves to permanent staff members and to lobbyists.

The magic of a Balanced Budget Amendment:

Another hardy perennial … After all, 49 states have such an amendment in their constitutions, so why not Washington?

In fact, the states’ balanced budgets are the best reason to avoid one at the federal level. When a downturn occurs, basic economic theory tells us that we need “counter-cyclical” policies to inject adrenaline into a fatigued economy — meaning more government spending and/or lower taxes. States do the opposite: A downturn means less revenue and more demands from unemployed residents … The fiscal drag from states in the recent Great Recession amounted to $800 billion, which the Obama administration’s stimulus plan barely offset. A federal balanced-budget amendment would only have aggravated the downturn — the economic equivalent of bleeding an anemic patient.

Maintaining fiscal flexibility is critical in the American political system, particularly in a globalized economy where less and less of our destiny is under our control. And the experience of the 1990s demonstrates that the White House and Congress together can take the steps needed to balance the budget under existing rules. 

Big Push for the most Destructive and Dumbest Legislation Congress has ever seen.

There's really no excuse for proposing something that puts future Congresses on the hook for, which may run counter to what needs to be done at the time, and has been describes as a straight jacket for government. Yeah, that's what it needs!!! 

NY Times: House Republicans, feeling they have scored significant fiscal victories, are moving on to an even bigger challenge: persuading voters, state legislatures and Democrats to alter the Constitution with a balanced budget amendment.

Speaker John A. Boehner told members that the best thing they could do during the August recess was to sell their constituents on the idea that the amendment — which essentially stipulates that government cannot spend more than it takes in — is necessary and good. They point out that such a measure passed the House in 1995, but then failed in the Senate by a single vote … 26 legislatures are dominated by Republicans.

The amendment … would require the acquiescence of two-thirds of each chamber of Congress, and three quarters of state legislatures.

The Simple, Bottom Line Answer as to why a Balanced Budget Amendment is a Bad Idea.

Like TABOR, the balanced budget amendment is a really dumb idea. California's economy has crashed and burned under 2/3rds majority rule. But beside previous blogs on the subject, where I dug deeper into why such an amendment would collapse the country, the following simple reason is irrefutable.

It changes our country from a majority rules system to a minority rules government.  California Rep. John Garamendi:

Tea Party Exposed as Authoritarian "my way or the highway" Lunatic Fringe.

Say what you will about Chris Matthews, but when he's taking on the new crop of tea party Republicans, he exposes them for the extremist we all knew they were. The only group that didn't get that message was the media, who gave them credibility and prominence in the political tragedy playing out before our eyes.

Matthews exposes Rep. Mike Lee for trying to have it both ways, as usual. Lee speed talks contradictions left and right, but doesn't get away with anything. Lee claimed the House plan was bipartisan (wrong), and that he was willing to compromise (but not really). Lee actually believes we're on our way to insolvency if we don't blow the government up first. It's sad when these suckers start believing their own lies.



Rep. Mo Brooks is next, who is a big supporter of a balanced budget debacle. Such an amendment would lock in personal and corporate tax cuts. The biggest myth award goes to the idea that wealthy people are the "job creators." An absolute lie. Talk to any small business owner trying to get off the ground. Mo gets shredded by Al Sharpton:

The Balanced Budget Amendment? It's done wonders for California...

Lawrence O'Donnell interviewed Robert Greenstein from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities about another bad budget idea from the Republican Party:



At the Frum Forum, this analysis of the balanced budget amendment. Again, this is just another horrific economic idea from our supposed guardians of fiscal responsibility.

The “balanced budget amendment” (BBA) currently endorsed by many Congressional Republicans not only requires that the budget be balanced but also stipulates, among other things, that federal spending cannot go above 18% of GDP without a 2/3 majority vote in favor, that taxes cannot be increased without a 2/3 majority vote in favor, and that a vote of 3/5 of both branches of Congress will be required to raise the debt ceiling. A 2/3 vote can also allow the budget not to be balanced. War can allow many of these majority requirements to be waived—with the notable exception of taxes, which would still require a 2/3 majority to be increased.*

An initial practical point: changing the tax system, the BBA would very likely make tax reform harder, not easier. Most forms of tax reform would require that taxes somewhere be raised (through the closing of various loopholes, say)… requirement for a 2/3 majority … the BBA seems to put in place an utterly unconservative dynamic: it makes it easier to increase spending than it is to increase taxes.

Because GDP is a notoriously unmoored number, the requirement that spending cannot exceed 18% of GDP is built on sand. In a year in which spending is 18% of GDP and the GDP number is later revised downward, part of the budget based on that year’s GDP might be deemed unconstitutional. Which part? This requirement could plant a bacterial trace of chaos in the budgetary system of the United States, one that could infect the whole of the federal budget.

Moreover, 18% is an entirely arbitrary number. According to the Office of Management and Budget, 1966, before Medicare really came into effect, was the last year where federal spending was below 18% of GDP. It is unclear why this number should be set in stone.

Almost every presidential administration since 1900 would have had budgets that would have required a Constitutional override of a 2/3 vote except Harding and Coolidge … though Coolidge’s presidency was also followed by the worst economic collapse in the twentieth century. The only Republican president in the postwar era whose policies led to at least one year with a balanced budget was Eisenhower. With the exception of 2001 (which was a partial carry over from Clinton-era budgets), every year of Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Bush I, and Bush II would run afoul of the BBA.

Federal debt has pretty much inexorably increased from 1900 to 2000, but the United States did not become poorer or radically less fiscally sound over this period. Moreover, the embrace of the principles of the BBA would seem to entail the rejection of the policies of every Republican and Democratic administration in the modern era … A total rejection of historical practical standards sounds less like moderating conservatism and more like an insistent radicalism.

The normalization of overrides could easily make public finances less sound and increase governmental inefficiency, as 2/3 of all members would have to be “persuaded” by subsidies, tax breaks, and pet programs.

It substitutes legalism for virtue and prudence. We can balance the budget tomorrow if we want—by spending no more than we gain in taxes. The existence of balanced budget amendments in various states has not saved them in any way from fiscal turmoil. Indeed, California, perhaps the paragon of dysfunctional state finances, has operated under a balanced budget amendment for years. Passing constitutional requirements, in the case of California and other states, was a poor substitute for judgment in legislative and executive branches.

The fact is that some debts are worth incurring, while others are not. Sometimes deficit spending makes perfect sense; at others, it’s equivalent to a drug addict borrowing for a good time. Sometimes, some taxes will have to be raised; sometimes, some taxes will have to be lowered. Personal judgment and principled deliberation can help us realize those times—a set of paragraphs plugged into the Constitution will not.