Several times last week President Obama said there was no need for a balanced budget amendment to the constitution because it was just an excuse for lawmakers to avoid making the necessary difficult choices. He’s correct; and they never will make those choices if they can avoid it.
The balanced budget amendment has been discussed for more than 3 decades yet is never acted on. The reason is quite simple; lawmakers don’t want to be boxed in to a specific number as that would likely put them in the position of being unable to bring home the bacon so dear to their hearts.
Putting the balanced budget amendment into “Main Street” perspective, it would be akin to a business choosing to borrow money to pay its bills and then slipping a few dollars under the table to their customers; it’s graft and corruption of the most revolting sort. Where the operation of our government differs from a shady business is that our lawmakers are using OUR money to pay back political favors.
Mr. Obama is correct when he says it’s an excuse, or cowardice, because most lawmakers are more focused on the next election rather than the welfare of the U.S.; most does not mean all, but when majority rules most play cronyism.
Democrats point to the ‘90s where the budget was in fact balanced (for a short while,) but if you dig a little it wasn’t Mr. Clinton that accomplished a balanced budget or a budget surplus, but rather Mr. Gingrich’s insistence on budgetary discipline aided by Clinton’s political pragmatism. Say what you will about Mr. Clinton’s policies, you simply cannot question his wisdom when it comes to political matters. Clinton could hear the rumblings of a political storm whereas Obama is totally tone-deaf.
Regardless of presidential politics, be they Democrat or Republican, they simply cannot run the government in an efficient and effective way, nor do they have the courage to go back to their supporters and display the backbone necessary to manage the federal budget in a responsible manner. A balanced budget amendment ties the politician’s hands, within reason, so they cannot spend more than the country produces and borrow money to make up the short-fall; within reason because a national emergency is always an exception and allows exceeding the balanced budget restrictions.
A balanced budget amendment does two things: It prevents the government from deficit spending and borrowing money to compensate for their overspending and requires lawmakers to spend wisely lest they hit the balanced budget wall; the key word being “requires,” because virtually no one on Capitol Hill chooses to make wise choices.
Presidents come and go, as do Speakers of the House, so allowing the government complete liberty to spend with abandon allows the budgetary explosion as we saw in the Bush and Obama administrations. They’ll both insist their spending was critical to the crisis de jour, while in both instances making tough choices to offset their exorbitant spending never happened, choosing instead to simply increase the limit on the country’s credit card.
Today we find ourselves in another such crisis created not by outside influences but by our own lack of discipline; a trait apparently lacking in all but a few in our government, therefore for the sake of ourselves and our children it’s vital we tie the hands of the undisciplined people who move in and out of the White House and Congress.