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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
I don't believe that a strictly balanced budget is necessarily a good idea. It doesn't leave enough wiggle room. Instead, I'd like to see limits that allow a little deficit spending when it's necessary, but keep it in check. For example, allow deficit spending, but never more than say 10% of the budget, and don't allow deficit spending to go on for more than X number of years in a row. And set a hard cap on the national debt as a portion of GDP.
 
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 be against such an amendment. The budget is purely a political animal. Requiring a political body; that already doesn't care about the welfare of the country, to balance such a thing will only invite more financial interloping for foreign bodies.
 
molten_dragon said:
I don't believe that a strictly balanced budget is necessarily a good idea. It doesn't leave enough wiggle room. Instead, I'd like to see limits that allow a little deficit spending when it's necessary, but keep it in check. For example, allow deficit spending, but never more than say 10% of the budget, and don't allow deficit spending to go on for more than X number of years in a row. And set a hard cap on the national debt as a portion of GDP.
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What departments/programs would you be willing to abolish to make this happen?
 
Neomalthusian said:
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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When millions of contruction workers are out of work and America has 100's of bridges that need repair it's a no-brainer that we should do that work now. We borrowed to build bridges in Iraq but not in our own country?
If you were worried about debt you would support David Stockman's one time wealth tax on the top 5%. just 15% would cut our debt in half overnight. It's not about debt it's about cutting programs you don't like. You wouldn't be a Republican if you didn't approve of more and more debt. You saw the chart I posted didn't you?
 
iguanaman said:
When millions of contruction workers are out of work and America has 100's of bridges that need repair it's a no-brainer that we should do that work now. We borrowed to build bridges in Iraq but not in our own country? If you were worried about debt you would support David Stockman's one time wealth tax on the top 5%. just 15% would cut our debt in half overnight.
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You ignore my responses to that stupid idea every time you bring it up. Many of the top 5% in terms of wealth are average retirees who accumulated their wealth for retirement. The uber rich are not the top 5%. The uber uber rich are the top tenth of one percent. As I have said before, if you really want to screw the elderly while reducing deficits, just abolish Medicare.

It's not about debt it's about cutting programs you don't like. You wouldn't be a Republican if you didn't approve of more and more debt. You saw the chart I posted didn't you?
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Nice try. I'm not a Republican. The reason I am not a Republican is because almost all of them are just about as fiscally idiotic as their counterparts on the left.
 
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Neomalthusian said:
What departments/programs would you be willing to abolish to make this happen?
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I would like to see all Federal Spending reduced to the levels of 2008. If a program or expenditure did not exist in 2008, cut it completely.

All wage rates and head counts cut back to the levels prevailing in 2008. Real dollars. Not adjusted for inflation. That is a good placed to start.

Once that is accomplished, reduce all expenditures by 10%. All of them. No exceptions.

From that point forward, no shopping cart legislation. One particular bill presented and approved at a time. If there are 1000 projects in the highway bill, then vote on each one of them. Make every expenditure based on 0 baseline budgeting. If there is anything to be spent, then make the vote on that one thing.

Since the Senate can only pass about 60 bills per year, 30 if Ried is in charge, we'd balance the budget in no time at all.
 
ChunkySalsa said:
I agree with the basic Keynesian principle of deficit spending during recessions and paying down the debt during the booms. A balanced budget amendment would tie their hands and prevent the government from moderating the excesses of the market. We should work to balance the budget, but preventing unemployed people from rioting in the streets is a higher priority.
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When there's a downturn, which will happen from time to time, revenues go down. Raising taxes is a bad idea, as are large spending cuts. Both of those things tend to have a negative effect on an economic recovery.

Revenue should go up when the economy bounces back, and that's the time to start trimming government. Ironically, it's the opposite of business. If you trim government when times are good, then you start with a smaller government at the next downturn.

The problem in the US is that the two major parties are mostly only good at growing government. Last time there was growth, taxes were slashed and spending wasn't. So the hole is bigger because now we're in a situation where we shouldn't be raising taxes or cutting spending.
 
code1211 said:
I would like to see all Federal Spending reduced to the levels of 2008. If a program or expenditure did not exist in 2008, cut it completely.

All wage rates and head counts cut back to the levels prevailing in 2008. Real dollars. Not adjusted for inflation. That is a good placed to start.

Once that is accomplished, reduce all expenditures by 10%. All of them. No exceptions.

From that point forward, no shopping cart legislation. One particular bill presented and approved at a time. If there are 1000 projects in the highway bill, then vote on each one of them. Make every expenditure based on 0 baseline budgeting. If there is anything to be spent, then make the vote on that one thing.

Since the Senate can only pass about 60 bills per year, 30 if Ried is in charge, we'd balance the budget in no time at all.
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Why 2008? There was a deficit then, too. Deficit spending is not something that Obama suddenly thought of one day. It's been going on for years, and has been out of control since the '80s.

Why in one paragraph do you propose something that would grind the wheels of government to a halt (voting on every expenditure individually), then in the next you criticize Harry Reid for not whipping them through? Which do you want? (Also, FYI, if the Senate did pass bill after bill, they'd have to be passed by the House also before becoming law. What do you think the chances of that are right now?)

Also, "adjusted for inflation" is real dollars. Today we think the dollar store is a great bargain. In 1950, it would have been a colossal rip-off.
 
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My caveat to a balanced budget amendment would, like many others, include an exception during Declared War but I would also put a mandatory defence spending clause. Say around 5% of the GDP during peace time. A properly maintained, equiped and trained military is a necessity.

Clinton and the Republican congress did finally balance the budget, but it decimated the military. Under Clinton, the military did not replace antiquated systems, maintenance cost continued to rise on these old systems while the budget was cut. This led to most, if not all organisations having a part of it's inventory non functional as parts were moved to keep other systems working. Some Naval Aviation units were unable fly for long periods of time because they had no fuel or maintenance budgets for up to 6 months at a time. Live fire weapons training, in the Air Force at least, was restricted to only those deploying, and even then only once every two years, the security police had slightly different training models.
 
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?
Click to expand...
Some good ideas....
Congress, right now, is hopelessly corrupted...they are so bad that only a total cut of pay would "work".
 
sangha said:
I'm not a liberal; I'm a socialist and liberal nor socialist are not mutually exclusive with independent
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Meaning ????
What I read here is vague and contradictory.
But I do know that it is not wise to pin labels on DP members....
 
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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Sure - and Bush II let 9/11 happen so he could have Iraq II and finish what Daddy started, right?!? :lol:
 
Neomalthusian said:
It is national self-sabotage to limit our purchases to what we can actually afford to purchase. This is America. We can grow and prosper forever.



/sarcasm
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This must be done very very carefully, and it has NOT been done carefully at all...maybe this scenario is impossible......
The poor are too poor and far too much wealth has shifted to the rich.....obviously...
We do need a much better Congress.
 
rocket88 said:
Why 2008? There was a deficit then, too. Deficit spending is not something that Obama suddenly thought of one day. It's been going on for years, and has been out of control since the '80s.

Why in one paragraph do you propose something that would grind the wheels of government to a halt (voting on every expenditure individually), then in the next you criticize Harry Reid for not whipping them through? Which do you want? (Also, FYI, if the Senate did pass bill after bill, they'd have to be passed by the House also before becoming law. What do you think the chances of that are right now?)

Also, "adjusted for inflation" is real dollars. Today we think the dollar store is a great bargain. In 1950, it would have been a colossal rip-off.
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Dollars adjusted for inflation are not real dollars. Take your dollar to the store and try to buy something that cost a dollar in 2008. Do you really not know the difference in this?

Deficits have been in use for years. No doubt about that. If the previous guys were craftsmen, this guy is an artist. Bush spent money like a sailor on a three day leave and Obama spends money like a pimp with three days to live.

I'm not at all sure what you are saying with the whole Reid is ineffective verbiage. ALL of the bills sent to him by the House are tabled in the Senate. Nothing EVER gets off his desk. As is Obama, he is a partisan hack who is interested in nothing but getting re-elected.

If Obama was still alive, there'd be cooperation in the Congress as he promised during his campaign for office.
 
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I would vote for anyone who propsed a balanced budget amendment.

However I would like two exceptions.
1. If there is a war, or an extreme event. Extra spending on that item is allowed. The war needs to be at sufficent scale. The Iraq or Libya war doesn't count.
2. If there is a recession, then they are allowed to spend more till the recession is over. Then there needs to be cuts of 3% of GDP each year till the budget is balanced again.
 
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?
Click to expand...


Honestly I cannot see such a amendment doing a lot of good. I am sure they would have an emergency clause that would enable them to go over budget during a crises such as war, natural disasters, ect. Congress would simply find a crisis on any given year or slowly include more things that are considered a crises to the point the amendment is pointless. They would never restrict themselves completely by not having a loophole in which to jump.
 
Baralis said:
Honestly I cannot see such a amendment doing a lot of good. I am sure they would have an emergency clause that would enable them to go over budget during a crises such as war, natural disasters, ect. Congress would simply find a crisis on any given year or slowly include more things that are considered a crises to the point the amendment is pointless. They would never restrict themselves completely by not having a loophole in which to jump.
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That is absolutely true.

There could be no emergency clause for the reason you state.

There could be a system of raising money by selling bonds or something like that.
 
I think a balanced budget amendment might be a good idea, but I do think it should have a limitation in the event of a 3/4ths vote of both houses or something.
 
code1211 said:
That is absolutely true.

There could be no emergency clause for the reason you state.

There could be a system of raising money by selling bonds or something like that.
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And how would that not be debt?
 
Neomalthusian said:
What departments/programs would you be willing to abolish to make this happen?
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Most of the cuts would have to come from the Military, Social Security, and Medicare/Medicaid (since those make up the vast majority of our budget). Bringing troops home from Iraq and Afghanistan would help on the military side. Increasing the retirement age slowly would help on the medicare/medicaid and social security side. It wouldn't be an immediate thing either. It would take several years to bring down costs enough to balance the budget. As far as what else I'd cut, I don't really know. I don't study federal budgets enough to know exactly what is in them, to be able to say what I'd cut.
 
I prefer the Paygo approach used in the 1990s to achieve the only budget surpluses we have had in the last 30 years.
 
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