The Return of the Balanced Budget

Normally a Republican idea, Utah’s Democratic Rep. Ben McAdams proposes a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution

Washington • Rep. Ben McAdams, D-Utah, has introduced legislation to propose a balanced budget amendment, jumping on an issue that has traditionally been a rallying cry for conservatives but one that is finding a new home among moderate Democrats worried about burgeoning national debt.

McAdams, the first Democrat to pitch such an amendment this congressional session, quickly found support from 26 fellow party members who are part of the Blue Dog Coalition.

“At a time when we face $1 trillion annual deficits, and both parties punt on even trying to pass a budget blueprint, we need to consider a new structure to force fiscal discipline," McAdams said. "With this bill, I'm saying let's stop ignoring the issue and start talking about how to address it."

McAdams won election last year over GOP Rep. Mia Love with one of the narrowest victories in the country and now represents a majority Republican district.

The legislation proposes an amendment to the Constitution that prohibits the federal government from spending more money than it takes in during the fiscal year, with the exception of times when the country is at war, engaged in a military conflict or facing a recession. It also exempts the requirement if the unemployment rate tops 7 percent for two or more consecutive months.

The president must also submit to Congress a balanced budget proposal every year.

The measure, though, bars a federal court from enforcing that requirement if it means cuts to Social Security or Medicare.

Such an amendment would need support of two-thirds of the House and Senate and ratification by 38 states to become the 28th addition to America’s original founding document.

I have no idea why Adams is considering doing this since this country will never be not at war or engaged in military conflicts. The next recession is already in the works or is close to happening. But it's still a very bad idea for anyone to try to do.

The republicans tried to pass one right after they passed their tax cuts. Democrats objected because of the irony and stupidity that republicans were suddenly concerned about the deficit. This is a good read if you're interested.

Here's a better idea. Let's cut the military budget in half, rescind the Trump tax cuts, stop giving Israel $10 million a day, $3.8 billion a year, $38 billion a decade since they can quite afford to buy their own military equipment since they aren't wasting theirs in useless wars. Let's quit giving subsidies and tax breaks for companies that don't need them. I'm sure that congress could find some other ways to deal with this ever increasing problem. But as Cheney once said, "f'ck deficits! They don't really matter."

As Gavel has stated, centrists are just lite republicans. Warren was able to fit right in with democrats after being a republican for decades because democrats became republicans thanks to the Clintons and their BFFs the Koch brothers who funded their DLC.

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when all that is required to sidestep it is to continue our current practice of conducting endless wars around the globe while embracing a capitalist economy which generates recessions with regularity along with its swings through boom and bust cycles. Unbridled capitalism and the greed it encourages is at the root of the great income disparity and ecocidic overconsumption we currently live with. We need to fetter capitalism, or replace it altogether. That beast knows no justice or sanity.

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Capitalism is the extraordinary belief that the nastiest of men for the nastiest of motives will somehow work for the benefit of all."
- John Maynard Keynes

Regardless if deficits matter or not, the point remains on how we want to spend our money. Left up to the people to decide, I'm sure it wouldn't be on bombs, wars, corporate welfare, and military foreign aid.

Overview. In fiscal year 2017 (10/1/2016 to 09/30/2017), the U.S. government allocated the following amounts for aid: Total economic and military assistance: $49.87 billion. Total economic assistance: $35.10 billion, of which USAID Implemented: $20.55 billion.
United States foreign aid - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_foreign_aid

Try as I might to find out how much of that is military vs say humanitarian, all five types of foreign aid are carefully mushed together so we'll never know.

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"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon

WoodsDweller's picture

n/t

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"The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function." -- Albert Bartlett
"A species that is hurtling toward extinction has no business promoting slow incremental change." -- Caitlin Johnstone

gulfgal98's picture

@WoodsDweller so I won't have to. A balanced budget equals austerity for those who least can withstand it.

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Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy