The Balanced Budget Amendment is a bad policy response to the 2011 debt issue.

I would like to put forward that the Balanced Budget Amendment is bad policy for the 2011 Debt debate. Unless my opponent wishes otherwise, the version of the BBA we will use is that which was in H.J. 1 that House Republicans pushed for [1]. I am also willing to consider the Senate version, though they differ mainly in thresholds for military conflict exemptions and tax raises. While lowering the debt is an admirable and necessary undertaking, there are wrong and right ways to go about it. BBA is the wrong way. I mean to argue the BBA is inappropriate for the following reasons. 1. Given modern state of deadlock, the BBA practically ensures that there will be no second deficit increase in time to stop credit downgrading. (In HJ 1, the only way to increase the deficit is for both houses to pass an amendment which is sent to the states). Not only is it impractical to believe that the House and Senate will agree to a constitutional amendment; it is nearly inconceivable that 38 state legislatures will agree to the government tieing its hands behind its own back when states run into money issues. 2. The BBA is unenforceable and would lead to a constitutional crisis. [2] 3. The BBA leads to unrealistic cuts in the immediate future. "Inï¿½fiscal yearï¿½2009, we would have had to abolish every discretionary spending program, including national defense, to balance the budget and that still wouldn't have been enough without higher revenues. We would have had to cut more than $300 billion out of Medicare and Social Security as well. " [3] 4. The BBA makes America more vulnerable to exogenous shocks and any form of recession by nixing the effects of automatic stabilizers. As Norman Ornstein, a resident scholar at the CONSERVATIVE American Enterprise Institute. "It would virtually ensure that an economic downturn would end up as a deep depression, by erasing any real ability of the government to pursue countercyclical fiscal policies and in fact demanding the opposite, at the worst possible time." [4] In 1992, Robert Reischauer — then director of the Congressional Budget Office and one of the nation's most respected experts on fiscal policy — explained in reference to freezing automatic stabilizers: "[I]f it worked [a constitutional balanced budget amendment] would undermine the stabilizing role of the federal government." [5] The Economic Policy Institute also forecfully argues that the BBA destroys countercyclical fiscal policy at times of economic downturn. [ibid] When the FDIC and PBGC uses assets it counts as deficit spending. That means that, if there was a bank run, it would be unconstitutional for the FDIC to pay for deposits or pension insurance unless there is an offsetting surplus IN THE YEAR OF THE RECESSION. That also undermines the faith Americans have in the banking system's ability to repay any losses. [2] 5. Other enforceable legislative means of controlling debt are available. For instance, the CATO institute gives an example mechanism through The Balanced Budget Veto [6]. Working off of HJ 1, an enforceable legislative tool would be just increasing the threshold vote needed for a spending increase. Alternatively, as can be found in the Boehner bill, a committee can be established with the purpose of making a number of cuts to the budget every year. While I am thoroughly against it, even Ryan Paul's plan is preferable to the BBA. 1. http://www.gpo.gov... 2. http://www.cbpp.org... Center on Budget and Policy Priorities: A Constitutional Balanced Budget Amendment Threatens Great Economic Damage 3. http://www.thefiscaltimes.com... Fiscal Times: Balanced Budget Amendment a ‘Phony' Deficit Solution 4. http://dropfox.com... "Fox News Lobbies For Balanced Budget Amendment That Economic Experts Say Would Hurt The Economy" 5. http://www.cbo.gov... CBO Testimony 1992 6. http://www.cato.org... Cato Analysis "Balanced Budget Veto."