The Fraud of the Balanced Budget Amendment

Amidst the flurry of imbecility and political cowardice that has become the debate on the national debt ceiling, one constant canard being bandied about is a constitutional amendment that would mandate a balanced budget. Proponents of such an endeavour claim that it is the only way to insure the future fiscal health of our nation.

While any successfully passed constitutional amendment is by definition constitutional, such a measure should best be described as being akin to prohibition; an idea that sounded popular for its time, but failed in colossal fashion in its implementation.

A balanced budget amendment would be anathema to the founders and framers. They created a framework within which the nation could prosper and flourish and become the hallmark of a free people, but it was contingent on the belief that those given the authority to govern would do so under the presupposition of doing what was best for the nation.

The Constitution gives broad but restricted powers to the three branches of government. The Congress was bestowed with, among other responsibilities, the obligation to manage the fiduciary needs of the nation. A democracy by definition will be a chorus of different voices, but abdicating ones part in the choir is unacceptable.

A federal government must protect and defend its people. Imagine a balanced budget amendment being in force in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. Would we have opted out of all of the short term financial needs based solely on the premise that we could not afford it? National disasters are unable to be accounted for within a budgetary framework. Imagine an earthquake in California: would we opt not to provide the massive amount of resources such a catastrophe would necessitate by telling Los Angeles we had met our budget limit on disasters for the year?

There are nations that wish us ill and continue to attempt to do us harm. Were we to be attacked by a sovereign nation would we only fight until our yearly budgeted allotment of bullets were utilized, at which point we would ask for an armistice until we could afford to purchase additional armaments in the subsequent years budget?

Granted, such examples are ludicrous on their face, but such is the nature of unforeseen consequences. There are people of good conscience that believe we should immediately retreat from all foreign military engagements. If they were able to deal with these missions on a budgetary basis, the question must be asked if they would indeed do so.

The flip side of those scenarios is just as insidious in their creation. An insolent Congress could claim that they could find no additional ways to save funding to bring the budget into balance, and so there would be a need for tax increases due to constitutional mandates. It is rarefied air that contains tax increases that are subsequently reversed.

At the heart of the issue however is a precept more basic and fundamental that goes to the very nature of a free nation.

Millions of Americans balance their household budgets simply because they know they must, or face specific consequences.

Do our elected officials not have the individual self control and intelligence to properly steward this nation simply because they do not understand it is their fundamental responsibility? A balanced budget amendment would allow for some level of mischievous misinterpretation by one political faction or another.

The best example of this is campaign finance reform, heralded by Congress as the way to ‘clean up’ the election process and remove the corruptive influence of money in politics.

The ink was not yet dry on the legislation before the first Political Action Committee (PAC) was formed, thereby effectively sidestepping the entire issue.

We cannot allow our elected officials to abdicate their responsibilities, or to allow our posterity to pay, literally, for the lack of courage on our part to protect their future.