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EDITOR OF REDSTATE

Force Congress to Stop the Debt

By: Erick Erickson (Diary)  |  January 18th, 2011 at 02:59 PM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

In 1997, the United States Senate voted on a balanced budget amendment. It fell just one vote short of the necessary 67 votes required for passage.

49 of the 50 states are required to balance their budgets, but Congress, like Vermont, has no such requirement. Complicating that is the legitimate argument that should a Balanced Budget Amendment go forward, it could just be an excuse for Congress to raise taxes in order to increase spending.

Well, no more. Jim DeMint and several of his colleagues are pushing a modified Balanced Budget Amendment and they want our help.

First, visit http://stopthedebtpledge.com and sign our “Stop the Debt” pledge. It states, “I hereby pledge to support only those candidates who demand that Congress stop the debt and pass a Balanced Budget Amendment.”

In the last 10 years, Congress has raised the debt ceiling 10 times, but it has not voted a single time to pass a Balanced Budget Amendment. The only way to keep Congress from creating more debt is to pass a Constitutional Amendment that forces it to balance the budget without raising taxes.

Second, call your senators and tell them to “stop the debt and balance the budget”. Urge them to do everything it takes, including a filibuster, to block the debt limit increase and pass the Balanced Budget Amendment. Click here to contact your senators.

Under the DeMint proposal, the Balanced Budget Amendment would

  • Require Congress to balance the federal budget each year
  • Prevent Congress from spending more than 20 percent of GDP
  • Require a 2/3 super-majority vote to raise taxes

The “adults” in Washington should not be able to hold us hostage with debt ceiling “sky is falling” rhetoric if they aren’t going to balance the budget.

Sign the pledge and let’s fight for a real balanced budget and no more debt.

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COMMENTS

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  • fpete13527

    Just signed it and passed it to others to sign.

    Americans are clear that the left has gone off the scale with radical spending to increase radical big government to foster radical Socialism. Americans don’t want this

    The sky will not fall if the debt ceiling is not raised. As a matter of fact, the sky will get brighter.

    No debt ceiling raise. Period.

  • Death_of_the_Donkey

    First, 20% of GDP is a moving target and it probably isn’t a good idea to have been cutting drastically during this recent downturn for example (I am not saying that the increase was called for, but cuts wouldn’t have been good either).

    Second, balancing the budget would have been nearly impossible during the last downturn (revenues slid to like 14% of GDP) and would have been very difficult during the Bush years as well (unless this would have prevented the wars for instance). I am all in favor of balancing the budget, but most of our spending is in longer term policies (ie defense/medicare/social security) and would be nearly impossible to adjust on an annual basis (in other words, a balanced budget amendment should come after we fix our spending problems, not before).

    Finally, I am not sure we need a balanced budget amendment, as we are supposed to be electing adults who can deal with our fiscal problems in an open and intelligent way without being forced into it through some (relatively) arbitrary rule.

  • fedsocdan

    The great Milton Friedman already did the research and crunched the numbers; 20% would be just fine.

    We miss you Milton!

  • gekster
  • Death_of_the_Donkey

    20% is fine, I agree with that, but 20% spending as a percent of GDP changes all the time (ie, when GDP drops 6%, the percent of spending goes up even if we don’t spend another dime). Thus, hard targets like this are probably a bad idea.

  • rbdwiggins

    imho, unless all non-defense spending, including entitlements, is restricted to less than 10% of GDP, and “20%” is designated as the ceiling, not the floor.

    The negative effects of so much Keynesian “stimulus” is clearly on display.

    Not enough pie to go around and need more revenue? Restructure entitlements and implement policies that increase the size of the pie.

  • rbdwiggins

    imho, unless all non-defense spending, including entitlements, is restricted to less than 10% of GDP, and “20%” is designated as the ceiling, not the floor.

    The negative effects of so much Keynesian “stimulus” is clearly on display.

    Not enough pie to go around and need more revenue? Restructure entitlements and implement policies that increase the size of the pie.

  • steve010

    If the House and Senate vote for this law, it does not become law until 3/4 of the State Legislatures ratify it. If the left really is in favor of all their bipartisan love fest, let’s see them put their votes where their mouths are.

    There have only been 27 Amendments to the Constitution and ten of them were ratified right off the bat, so really there have only been 17 in the last 220 years and two of those negated each other. This is how monumental a Constitutional Amendment is. If the States ratify this Amendment, it must be important and necessary. The only reason to vote against this Amendment is if you are afraid that it will be ratified. My thought is that this Amendment will beat the record of the 26th Amendment of 4 months.

  • wannabeanncoulter

    How will Congress accommodate emergency supplemental spending bills, such as those for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan? Would it even be possible to balance the federal budget each year if we still rely on emergency supplemental spending bills? Would we have to start a “rainy day fund” in anticipation of catastrophic events that occur in between budget cycles?

  • http://impudent.edublogs.org/ kyle8

    an emergency fund. Real money, not the phoney baloney IOU’s in the socalled SS trust fund.

  • http://impudent.edublogs.org/ kyle8

    an emergency fund. Real money, not the phoney baloney IOU’s in the socalled SS trust fund.

  • dajeeps

    If it is the only recourse then so be it, but I have a few issues with it.

    It gives a sort of wink and a nod to the warts on government that has well expanded past its constitutional intent. I suppose one could imagine 20% of GDP being spent on defense, the post office, post roads, and managing government property; those would be some handsome digs. But that isn’t where the bulk of the debt problem comes from. The bulk of what is currently spent is on matters of juristiction it has usurped from the States, the majority of which should just be returned instead of adamantly insisting that they cannot govern themselves and stepping in where the constitution has given it no authority to act, and no authority to appropriate funds to that purpose. To reitterate my point, it gives some indirect sanction to the current condition of constitutional subversion within the constitution itself rather that rectifying it, and it’s dangerous territory to tread.

    I would prefer a larger committment to clarifying the meaning of the Commerce Clause and the role of the courts in constitutional interpretation. Should those be done in an appropriate way, the debt problem would take care of itself.

  • http://impudent.edublogs.org/ kyle8

    I have heard constant criticism against balanced budget, line item veto, and term limit amendments all based upon a possible unintended consequence.

    But we already know about the problems they are intended to curtail and those are pretty damn bad. In fact, those problems are killing us. I think it is high time to try something,

    I know there are know panacea, and I know that other problems can arise. But if we passed a single amendment that embodied all three of those things, I have no doubt at all that we would be better off than we are now.

  • http://impudent.edublogs.org/ kyle8

    I have heard constant criticism against balanced budget, line item veto, and term limit amendments all based upon a possible unintended consequence.

    But we already know about the problems they are intended to curtail and those are pretty damn bad. In fact, those problems are killing us. I think it is high time to try something,

    I know there are know panacea, and I know that other problems can arise. But if we passed a single amendment that embodied all three of those things, I have no doubt at all that we would be better off than we are now.

  • edwyrd

    it forces congress to keep spending BELOW 20% to avoid such an eventuallity

  • eburkedisciple

    It may not be perfect as Donkey man points out but it is better than the present situation. I would rather deal with the problems this creates (they would be immediate and relatively short) than have the current situation where it takes a generation or more. It passes the common sense test which little in WDC has for awhile. Sadly, contrary to Donkey man’s claim, it is hard to find adults to send to WDC anymore. They need clear boundaries.

  • eburkedisciple

    We really do!

  • dajeeps

    I object to the notion that an arbitrary ceiling on spending will materially solve anything in an atmosphere where we’ve just had ObamaCare rammed down our throats. It doesn’t forbid such things, but encourages the kind of budget chicanery that already occured, in a much larger degree, and more unfunded mandates on States, corporations and individuals alike; it wouldn’t make any difference at all in managing the budget choices where the constitution is but an afterthought. Even if the government were mindful of such an amendment and the judiciary has yet to debotch it, it would depend entirely on the make up of congress which priorities are set forth in complying with it. Do we really want to cut defense and road maintenance to pay for ObamaCare or other kinds of socialism? Suppose ObamaCare ends up taking more than 20% of GDP alone, then what? Consider the ideologues in government the last couple of years and take a gander at what the answer to this situation might be.

    Debt isn’t our problem, but rather a symptom of the larger problem that centralized administrative states, fascist, socialist, communist or some form of hybrid fail in more ways than one. And unless or until we deal with that our republic is on the fast track to the deep hot place.

  • sthelenshome

    I’ve been wrong before, but wouldn’t a balanced budget ammendment cause the government to make drastic cuts in spending, assuming that they cannot do any major tax increases at the same time? They have to get enough money to pay down the debt, so I see BIG cuts. This may cause the state governments to step up and play a larger role in governing the people insted of being lapdogs of the feds and waiting for the next hand-out, (which hopefully won’t be there). De-centralizing the feds will act to reduce the socialistic progression of our country; another good thing. Hope I’m not simply repeating what others have said, but I see a huge plus for getting the states involved in passing such an ammendment.

  • http://impudent.edublogs.org/ kyle8

    while I am trying to adress a right now, real problem

  • http://impudent.edublogs.org/ kyle8

    while I am trying to adress a right now, real problem

  • tedpomeroy

    The GSA properties were up on the web today!

    Sell the TVA! This was a great Newt Gingrich failure not to get this done back in the 90′s.