Do you think that the federal government should be required by the Constitution to maintain a balanced budget?
The reason I am asking this is, we are digging ourselves into an enourmous hole and President Obama's budget would raise the deficit to 21 trillion by 2021.
No, we should not maintain a balanced budget.
Most people cannot live on a balanced budget - that is without debt. People use debt to get student loans, to get mortgages, to get capital to start up businesses. They use debt to eventually create a profit.
Same thing happens in regards to the government. The government borrows money and uses that money for certain programs. Those programs can then help create a profit.
This is especially the case with things like transportation infrastructure. I believe that for every $1 we spend on transportation infrastructure, we get $1.60 back, for a profit of $0.60 per dollar spent.
Also, government debt is good for creditors since our government is so traditionally stable.
So no - a balanced budget amendment would be a very bad idea. Maybe an amendment that would limit how much debt we could borrow would be a good idea. But there are also other things that could be done too.
For instance, a war tax amendment. If our armed forces are deployed in combat for over 90 days anywhere then the federal government institutes a mandatory sales tax on all goods and services to pay for it.
Another would be a national internet sales tax. All goods and services paid for over the internet should be taxed at 5%. 1% goes to the buyer's local government, 1% goes to the buyer's state government, 1% goes to the vendor's local government, 1% goes to the vendor's state government, and 1% goes to the federal government. This also has the added benefit of allowing stores to compete better with internet vendors.
There's many other options we could do to increase tax revenues to pay off the government debt and government deficit.
