"Cut, Cap, and Balance" Constitutional Amendment

[Puppycow]

Republicans want to make a constitutional amendment a condition for agreeing to raise the debt ceiling. This constitutional amendment would cap government spending at 18% of GDP (which has never been done since 1966, and even Paul Ryan's "radical right-wing social engineering" wouldn't qualify). It would also require a two-thirds supermajority in both houses of congress to raise taxes.

There's even a website for this proposed amendment sponsored by a long list of conservative and Tea Party type groups.

Personally, I think that if this were to actually become part of the constitution, it would be a disaster for the US.

This is not your father's Balanced Budget Amendment. In the past, most proposed balanced budget amendments have been just that: a requirement that government revenues equal government expenditures. This one goes much further to the right, by capping government spending and making it near impossible to raise taxes.

Here's what USA Today says:

Reading between the lines, it's clear that many supporters care less about cutting the deficit than about rewriting the Constitution to embrace an economic theory that shrinks government and makes it almost impossible to raise taxes.

Certainly, balancing the budget is a sound goal. We've been supporting it in this space for more than 20 years. Congress and successive presidents have demonstrated an inability to match revenue and spending. Something has to be done to change the incentives.

But the fatal flaw in virtually any balanced budget amendment is that it ties the government's hands in times of economic distress. When those sorts of crises hit, the government needs to be able to move quickly to rescue major financial institutions and deploy "automatic stabilizers," such as unemployment benefits and food stamps that steady the economy until private-sector forces can create a recovery. Failure to intervene caused the Great Depression of the 1930s, and had a balanced budget amendment been in place when the financial crisis struck in 2008, there's no doubt at all that we'd be living through another one now.

 

[The Don]

Making the offer safe in the knowledge that there isn't a hope that it'll be approved. Then they can say something like:

We were perfectly willing to compromise to avoid partisan brinkmanship and rescue the US economy but instead those nasty liberals refused to curtail their out of control spending

If it wasn't for the fact that the amendment would IMO be very damaging to the US economy, the Democrats should call their bluff, say "sure" and put the Republicans in charge of making the cuts (reminding the US electorate of how (spectacularly un)successful Republican spend cutting and budget balancing has been in the past).

I have male pattern baldness. Passing this amendment would be as successful in its aim as me wishing I had a full head of hair would be at addressing that issue.

 

[leftysergeant]

By the time an amendment could even clear both houses of congtress, the teatards who are holding up the process now will have had to run for re-election at least once. What makes those worthless jerks think they will be around to call the shots again?

Two thirds super-majority to raise taxes? What are they doing? Hitting each other over the head with the the Speaker's empties? Goofy idea. It would be just about impossible to insure that we do not have, at any time thirty dimbulbs in the Senate willing to let the country go to hell rather than raise taxes.

Dumb idea.

 

[Alferd_Packer]

Everyone seems to forget that an amendment has to be ratified by 3/4 (or 38) states as well.

 

[Almo]

Is there an agreed way to measure GDP?

This has no place in the constitution.

 

[Alt+F4]

Republicans want to make a constitutional amendment a condition for agreeing to raise the debt ceiling.

I guess this will be the thirty-first amendment to the constitution, passed after the amendments to ban flag burning, gay marriage and abortion.

 

[lomiller]

Making the offer safe in the knowledge that there isn't a hope that it'll be approved. Then they can say something like:

For a long time now Republicans have campaigned on the idea that they can still provide all the services (mainly Military, Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security) people want but not have them pay the taxes required to fund those services. In support of this they have floated all kinds of nutty ideas on how these things would actually be paid for but really they just fell back to borrowing.

The problem they now face is that they have been pushing these nutty ideas for so long they have a generation that grew up on them and drank the cool-aid. Now these people have been elected themselves and the older crowed needs to pull them aside and explain “these are just things we say for elections, actually doing them would be a bad idea”.

In the meantime they need to find away to vote for these ideas without actually having any of them pass, or vote against then things they know need to happen without having them killed. Thus you get things like the McConnell plan which amounts to let’s give the President the authority to raise the debt ceiling then pass a bill voting it down, but that bill will then get vetoed by the President.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

Everyone seems to forget that an amendment has to be ratified by 3/4 (or 38) states as well.

I think the motive of those taking the pledge is just to have an excuse not to agree to any compromise at least until the 2012 elections.

 

[daredelvis]

I guess this will be the thirty-first amendment to the constitution, passed after the amendments to ban flag burning, gay marriage and abortion.

But before the ERA.

Daredelvis

 

[TheNooch]

Does the amendment have a clause that says, "Having elected a Republican president, and after ensuring he was born in the United States and is of 99% anglo heritage, it shall be deemed, "just peachy", to start foreign wars and just keep them off the budget".

 

[C_Felix]

Thanks to prior deficit-reduction deals and a strong economy, the federal government ran a surplus in 1998 and for the next three years. Then an economic downturn, huge tax cuts, two unfunded wars and an unfunded expansion of Medicare plunged the budget back into the red, where it has been ever since.

The moral is, Congress doesn't need a constitutional amendment to balance the budget. It just needs the will to do it and the willingness to compromise over how.

Don't really need an amendment, now do we?



Now, this just seems to be a balanced budget amendment in disguise.

 

[Tmy]

Why an amendment? Why not just pass a plain old law?

By the way. What happens in case of emergencies?? War, natural disaster, financial disaster, another 911, space aliens attack?

 

[leftysergeant]

Why an amendment? Why not just pass a plain old law?

By the way. What happens in case of emergencies?? War, natural disaster, financial disaster, another 911, space aliens attack?

If the Republicons have the majority in congress, we're screwed.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

Why an amendment? Why not just pass a plain old law?

By the way. What happens in case of emergencies?? War, natural disaster, financial disaster, another 911, space aliens attack?

Wasn't it Cantor who said we shouldn't allocate any emergency spending (Joplin, MO after the tornado devastation) without cutting spending elsewhere to offset it. So I guess the answer is no.

I think this calls for a Constitutional amendment to strike the two occurrences each of "general welfare" and "common defence" from the Constitution if the GOP gets its way.

 

[Puppycow]

Well, the bill has passed the House, by a vote of 234 to 190.

Michele Bachmann was one of 9 republicans to vote against it, while 5 democrats voted for it. The reason why she voted against it is because she had earlier pledged not to vote to raise the debt ceiling under any circumstances.

 

[Puppycow]

Why an amendment? Why not just pass a plain old law?

By the way. What happens in case of emergencies?? War, natural disaster, financial disaster, another 911, space aliens attack?

The reason for making anything a constitutional amendment rather than a mere law is because an amendment is much harder to undo or nullify. The constitution overrides mere laws, and judges are required to uphold the constitution.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

The reason for making anything a constitutional amendment rather than a mere law is because an amendment is much harder to undo or nullify. The constitution overrides mere laws, and judges are required to uphold the constitution.

I disagree. The reason for most amendments is that mere legislation would otherwise be unconstitutional. The point was that an amendment is not necessary (or especially helpful) in achieving the goal of a balanced budget.

In a way, it's just stating a goal. Why not pass a constitutional amendment requiring the unemployment rate be less than 5%? It's certainly something we'd all like.

 

[KoihimeNakamura]

I imagine the majority of people would vote for it because it "sounds" good,.

 

[Darth Rotor]

I am currently watching a guy named Jeff Flake on CSPAN in the comments in the House replay.

Been a lot of noise.

The only rep who got the serious gavel for staying over her time was, from Texas (bless her heart) the Honorable Sheila Jackson Lee.

Even saw Chris Van Hollen (D Maryland) invoke the name of Ronald Reagan.

It's been most entertaining.

 

[Puppycow]

I disagree. The reason for most amendments is that mere legislation would otherwise be unconstitutional. The point was that an amendment is not necessary (or especially helpful) in achieving the goal of a balanced budget.

In a way, it's just stating a goal. Why not pass a constitutional amendment requiring the unemployment rate be less than 5%? It's certainly something we'd all like.

Well there's that too. Often laws get undone by meddlesome judges who declare them to be unconstitutional. I think we actually agree, but emphasized different aspects.