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

Pro 1. As I noted for point 1 as to avoiding downgrade, "what is necessary (but not sufficient) is meeting the August 2nd deadline." The (but not sufficient) bit was in reference to a point you make that raising the ceiling is one of many steps. As I say above, the BBA fails Pro 1 for the same reason 100% spending cuts from military source fails Pro 1. Pro 2. What this system of enforcement says is that unelected judges will be the ones combing through our budgets finding what spending to nix. Consider this applying to the appropriations process. Congress and President agree on guidelines and then pass spending packages in chunks. If the entire budget is balanced except for a screw-up concerning funding two programs with the same chunk of money, the COURT will be the one who decides our economic policy. That's what activist judges will have in their hands. Let's say you get an economic downturn in the middle of a fiscal year. If Congress didn't pass steep cut and their appropriation bills have passed, they are in unconstitutional waters. Since spending goes in chunks, let's say for instance that a defense spending bill is the last bill passed, and that puts us over the 18% mark. Does the court strike down defense spending, or do we give courts the ability to look through our whole budget and trim what they like? Because the amendment doesn't bar citizens, what you'll end up with is a crisis predicted by former Supreme Court Justice Bork. There would be hundred of lawsuits across across the country leading to inconsistent theories and results (from individual judges making their own habits of where to cut from spending bills). [1] You refer to "state-level" precedent, and again I point to the major differences between State and Federal balanced budgets. Namely, states do not need to balance their budgets, only their "operating budgets." States borrow enough to run deficits even while they claim they have "balanced the operating budget." States can go even further since, unlike the proposed Federal BBA, states do not need to be balanced at the start, during AND end of each year. [2] Pro 3. Assuming that, over seven years, our government was able to entirely balance the budget, so that we have no more debt (a weighty assumption, but for Pro 3 I will take it). If an economic disaster like the one from 2008 occurred, we would face similar spending cuts to those referred to earlier. The BBA doesn't allow for any sort of protracted response to a recession. We have to pay the deficit immediately without any concern of future investment of resources. Pro 4. You claim "What causes recessions? Politicians want to overspend to get votes from constituents, and whoever is in office wants to spend to keep as much stimulus as possible. Required fiscal sobriety will prevent severe recessions in the first place. Not overspending in the first place removes the corrections of deep recessions " Then you claim below that "Reduction of revenues is a consequence of recession " Which is it? Are you going to argue that recessions are caused by overspending, or are they a consequence of government spending? I'm not sure what you mean by saying there is no "automatic stabilizer." Most economists agree that they exist, to say the least. In essence, we're talking about negative feedback mechanisms. A stabilizer isn't meant to stop a recession head-on. Stabilizers are like break dampeners on a speeding train. You can't stop a runaway train by just slamming on the breaks. Stabilizers are similar to "pumping the breaks." One of many examples is automatic increases in unemployment compensation. Lowering interest rates through any mechanism will only benefit you to a certain extent. We can only affect the nominal interest rates. According to the taylor rule (interest(nominal)= inflation – interest(real)), monetary policy will lose all usefulness during a recession at a certain point. If the bank is able to get nominal interest rates to zero, and we are in a recession, then the equation becomes 0 = interest(real) + deflation. That means that even with nominal interest rates set at zero, and any sort of deflation, the real interest rate will be BELOW zero. Automatic stabilizers are complements that become even more important when monetary policy fails. Automatic stabilizers do exist, and they are in place. I quote five economic nobel laureates who also agree "automatic stabilizers" exist for recessions. Pro 5: I never said I wanted a line-item veto in the constitutional sense. There are variations which in the past have been shown to be more promising than a straight line-item veto. That would be revisiting the Presidential impoundment power. Thomas Jefferson first used it to stop unnecessary military spending in 1801. [3] It was in function until Nixon and the ï¿½Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974. This is different from just the veto power and has political flexibility built into it. Again, no amendment is necessary. Historical precedent has shown Impoundment to be a well-used tool unlike the straight veto. [3] Historically, Impoundment power has an actual record of success while federal-level balanced budget has never been tried. Con 1. We do agree a basic problem in Constitution. There are several. History has shown that there alternatives. I provided Alexander Hamilton as an example of how we got out of war debts over 30 years while simultaneously growing our credit and banking system. Jefferson's "full balance" approach would have crippled us. As noted above, however, when in office Jefferson's tool of choice was Impoundment. It was NOT a congressional balancing mechanism. Con 2: As noted above, I completely agree that in the long term raising the debt ceiling is not enough. In fact, I wouldn't mind cuts even greater than the $4 trillion. However, as noted in Pro 1, as a policy response in the downgrade debate, it was inappropriate. It would have pushed us past the August 2nd deadline and forced a downgrade. Once the deadline has been lifted, then we can talk about extreme plans like 100% defense cuts, a Supreme Court that pushes our pennies for us, and.or a Balanced Budget Amendment. 1. http://www.cato.org... 2. http://www.cbpp.org... 3. http://law.onecle.com...