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Balanced Budget Amendment

Balanced Budget Amendment

  • Yes

    Votes: 14 50.0%

  • No

    Votes: 12 42.9%

  • Not Sure

    Votes: 2 7.1%
  • Total voters
    28
Dagger said:
What do you guys think about a Balanced Budget Amendment to the constitution? Personally I think it would be a great amendment except for the fact that Democrats and some Republicans would relentlessly raise taxes to comply with the amendment. A possible solution to this is have a 5 year fixed tax rate, basically saying the government cant raise taxes in order to comply with the balanced budget amendment unless there is a 3/4 majority to do so. Also, congress members would get a pay cut if the budget wasnt balanced in time.

Thoughts?
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If we actually had judges that enforced an amendment we already have-the Tenth Amendment, we would need only about one fifth the amount of taxes to pay for the legitimate functions of government that would be left
 
What if we had a balanced budget amendment during ww2.

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TurtleDude said:
yeah Germany could have taken over America where half of the citizens own high powered rifles (no thanks to the dem ninnies)

I think not
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Would we be speaking german or japanese?
 
TurtleDude said:
If we actually had judges that enforced an amendment we already have-the Tenth Amendment, we would need only about one fifth the amount of taxes to pay for the legitimate functions of government that would be left
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10th amendment? is that what your boy bush had in mind when he passed medicare part d and no child left behind.?
 
99percenter said:
Would we be speaking german or japanese?
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neither-but we would have had a bunch more ships and sailors in the pacific if FDR hadn't let the Imperial Navy hit our unprotected naval base so he could use it to get us into a war with Germany
 
99percenter said:
10th amendment? is that what your boy bush had in mind when he passed medicare part d and no child left behind.?
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Bush is not at issue right now. its the turd known as Obama
 
TurtleDude said:
neither-but we would have had a bunch more ships and sailors in the pacific if FDR hadn't let the Imperial Navy hit our unprotected naval base so he could use it to get us into a war with Germany
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Ah, the old FDR let us get attacked on purpose theory. That one's a classic. However, it has problems. If FDR allowed for the attack, why didn't he at least make sure our planes got off the ground and Pearl Harbor so they could at least make it a good fight? He would have still had the attack he needed to justify going to war.
 
Luna Tick said:
Ah, the old FDR let us get attacked on purpose theory. That one's a classic. However, it has problems. If FDR allowed for the attack, why didn't he at least make sure our planes got off the ground and Pearl Harbor so they could at least make it a good fight? He would have still had the attack he needed to justify going to war.
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same reason why he allowed Russia half of Europe
 
It all depends on what you mean by balanced. If you mean NO ability to borrow ever, even in times of war, then it would not be workable. If you were to limit the ability of the gov't to do as it now does, which is to simply spend as much as they wish, without regard to any real limits, then yes. The devil is in those details. Since states need not worry about such matters as wars, they work reasonably well under true balanced budgets.

I do fear that any exception for "war" would simply guarantee congress would seek to constantly keep us in a declared state of "war", just as they used the "emergency declaration" for the 2010 census (a 200+ year tradition) expense to skip even that NORMAL and EXPECTED expense from being covered by their silly "pay go" budget rules.

The best idea, IMHO, is to limit the total peacetime spending budget of the federal gov't to a fixed percentage of the past year's ACTUAL GDP. A mandatory amount of principle repayment percentage of the national debt should also be included. Obama has increased federal spending by 20% over that of Bush, which was already WAY too high. Everybody seemed "happy" with the Clinton federal budgets that had federal spending at about 19% of GDP, I personally think that 18% of GDP is a much better target.

Obama is now spending well over 24% of GDP at the federal level and that is clearly not working out well, even Bush, while spending at 20% of GDP, was running large federal deficits in every year of his presidency. It seems clear that the congress is unwilling to tax "we the sheeple" at anything above 18% of GDP, so it only seems logical to TRY to limit peacetime federal spending to that level as well.

If we place no limits on federal spending then we will sonn become like Greece yet, we are definitely "too big to bail".
 
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code1211 said:
Maybe a part of the budgeting process would need to include the establishment and maintenance of a Rainy Day fund.
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Or we could all just sell lemonaide to make up the difference. This is nothing but a childish exercise in stupididty. Countries are not individuals or corporations or even States. They are something different and tieing the hands of Govt. in this way would lead to nothing but trouble. We are not broke or in danger of being broke. Our Nation is backed by the $40 trillion in net worth of a measely 5% of us. That's more money than had been created by man before 1980. We need to concentrate on getting our people back to work, not waste time with drivel lke this.
On the other hand, you could look at the history of our debt and simply ban Republicans from running for President. That would do more for our deficits than a ammendment which would take a decade to get ratified.

US-national-debt-GDP.png
 
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iguanaman said:
Or we could all just sell lemonaide to make up the difference. This is nothing but a childish exercise in stupididty. Countries are not individuals or corporations or even States. They are something different and tieing the hands of Govt. in this way would lead to nothing but trouble. We are not broke or in danger of being broke. Our Nation is backed by the $40 trillion in net worth of a measely 5% of us. That's more money than had been created by man before 1980. We need to concentrate on getting our people back to work, not waste time with drivel lke this.
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Yes, we should find a way to get people back to work. We shouldn't abruptly balance the budget. That would shock the economy and cause huge problems. However, aren't you tired of paying interest on so much debt? The budget could be gradually balanced as the economy improves. And then we require it to be balanced except in extreme situations. If a balanced budget were the rule, not the exception, we would have millions of dollars in interest that we keep paying to finance the debt. The economy could be way better over the long haul. Maybe we wouldn't have such a malarial economy that booms for a while then busts. Maybe it could be consistently good without such painful recessions.
 
Luna Tick said:
Yes, we should find a way to get people back to work. We shouldn't abruptly balance the budget. That would shock the economy and cause huge problems. However, aren't you tired of paying interest on so much debt? The budget could be gradually balanced as the economy improves. And then we require it to be balanced except in extreme situations. If a balanced budget were the rule, not the exception, we would have millions of dollars in interest that we keep paying to finance the debt. The economy could be way better over the long haul. Maybe we wouldn't have such a malarial economy that booms for a while then busts. Maybe it could be consistently good without such painful recessions.
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We don't need an ammendment to "gradually balance the budget". Clinton was running a surplus remember. It's just more fiddling while the country burns, a diversion from the problem at hand. We are not broke or near broke. We can grow our way out of this deficit but not if "austerity" sabatoges our recovery before it takes hold. We need to raise taxes on the top bracket and rebuild our infrastucture. There will never be a better time or cheaper rates for our borrowing.
 
Dagger said:
What do you guys think about a Balanced Budget Amendment to the constitution? Personally I think it would be a great amendment except for the fact that Democrats and some Republicans would relentlessly raise taxes to comply with the amendment. A possible solution to this is have a 5 year fixed tax rate, basically saying the government cant raise taxes in order to comply with the balanced budget amendment unless there is a 3/4 majority to do so. Also, congress members would get a pay cut if the budget wasnt balanced in time.

Thoughts?
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I would support a balanced budget. But only with the following stipulations.

1.There must be a spending cap based on 90% the previous year's collections.The other 10% goes into a rainy day fund.

2.There must be a tax cap so that those in office can not inflate what is collected in order to inflate spending.

3.There must be an exception for a national emergency like a mass weather/natural or mass nuclear disaster or war that is a direct threat to this country such as an invasion or a direct attack on in any of the US states or territories(excluding overs seas bases, embassies and anything else residing in another country).

4.There should be a rainy day fund to help alliviat any debt caused by the national emergency or mass weather/natural disaster or nucelear disaste or way, That rainy day has the following stipulations-
A.It will be illegal to use that rainy day fund for anything else other than war or severe natural disaster.​
B.It will be illegal to propose that money in that rainy day fund be used for something else.​
c.It will be illegal to propose that funding for that rainy day fund be diverted to something else unless that rainy day fund is filled up to fund at least half another Afghanistan or Iraq war and half a natural disaster .​

5.Should tax cuts happen then next years spending must actually take into account those tax cuts.
 
99percenter said:
of course he is. He left a huge mess.
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The Big 0 has continued every Bush program and added more.

What program(s) from the Bush era that the Big 0 has endorsed by continuing it are you referring to as a mess?
 
iguanaman said:
Or we could all just sell lemonaide to make up the difference. This is nothing but a childish exercise in stupididty. Countries are not individuals or corporations or even States. They are something different and tieing the hands of Govt. in this way would lead to nothing but trouble. We are not broke or in danger of being broke. Our Nation is backed by the $40 trillion in net worth of a measely 5% of us. That's more money than had been created by man before 1980. We need to concentrate on getting our people back to work, not waste time with drivel lke this.
On the other hand, you could look at the history of our debt and simply ban Republicans from running for President. That would do more for our deficits than a ammendment which would take a decade to get ratified.

US-national-debt-GDP.png
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Which party was controlling the Congress, and therefore the purse strings, during these periods?
 
code1211 said:
The Big 0 has continued every Bush program and added more.

What program(s) from the Bush era that the Big 0 has endorsed by continuing it are you referring to as a mess?
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Don't know who this big 0 is.
 
Hare said:
When doing so wouldn't put the clamps on short term growth. (i.e. when we're in shouting distance of quasi normal labor market conditions.)
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In 2008, Federal Spending was $2,982.5 Billion. In 2012 it will be at least $3,795.5 Billion. Unless it's more. An increase over 2008 spending of at least 813 billion dollars. That's a 27% increase.

For a country that's broke, that's some pretty excessive spending based on some absolutely awful planning. No budgets submitted. No austerity within the payroll or the programs. No attempt, not even a weak one to control the excesses. That mule brain in the bath tub at the conference is just the tip of the ice berg. We just need to cap spending at the 2008 level and then start trying to balance the budget.

The road we are on can only be traveled in a handbasket.

Historical Federal Receipt and Outlay Summary
 
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iguanaman said:
We don't need an ammendment to "gradually balance the budget". Clinton was running a surplus remember. It's just more fiddling while the country burns, a diversion from the problem at hand. We are not broke or near broke. We can grow our way out of this deficit but not if "austerity" sabatoges our recovery before it takes hold. We need to raise taxes on the top bracket and rebuild our infrastucture. There will never be a better time or cheaper rates for our borrowing.
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There really is no limit to how much you people would borrow and spend or how quickly you'd borrow and spend it, is there?
 
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