Balanced Budget Amendment

Sorry for the misunderstanding about round one. First, to defend my own point. A BBA would slow down congress indirectly. I gave the example of approaching the debt ceiling, which, I think we can agree, is highly relevant. The deadline imposed by the debt ceiling exacerbated existing rifts within Congress. The rifts in turn slowed down decision making. What a BBA would do is act as sort of a "mini debt ceiling". As Congress approaches their limit, they will begin (or rather continue, but worse) squabbling over bills to excessive degrees. You use the example of a family in your first contention, and I think that is a suitable parallel, so I will use it as well. Let's say that the primary provider for the family (I realize it's stereotypical but I'm going to use the father) gets a bonus. At first, it's "Yay, let's buy stuff!" as the money runs out, the family has to start choosing more. Whereas in the beginning Jane could get a new blow dryer AND Johnny could get a new baseball glove, when the money starts to run low, they begin to argue over who gets it. The same thing would happen on a larger scale as the limit's approached. Now you have Republicans and Democrats fighting for the rest of the money, neither willing to concede. We know this happens because (unfortunately) very similar circumstances to what you propose recently occurred and these were the results. Introducing a BBA would be like creating a debt limit (I know it's not DEBT, but it's the same idea) that would be even more recurrent than the one existing now. Further regarding your first point, cannot a family apply for a loan? Nearly everyone, when buying a new car or house, will take out a loan for it. They don't have the $300,000 for that new colonial on the market, but they can still buy it because they can get a loan for the money. They will receive the loan because the bank trusts them to pay it back. The same things happen on a larger scale. The United States, until recently, had the highest possible credit rating, meaning people trust us to pay back what we borrow. Even when it was downgraded, it is still extremely good. As Jon Stewart points out, (paraphrasing, but it's pretty close) "We went from AAA to AA+? Why is everyone so worried? If you go out to get a porno and find out its only XX+ instead of XXX, are you really THAT disappointed?". And the fact is, we received said downgrade because of congress' inability to function effectively and efficiently under the imposition of a deadline. Experts estimate that the tipping point of the United States' debt is at about 180% of the GDP, and right now we are at around 100%. Where we are is sustainable. Japan is one of the world's strongest economies, and their debt is roughly 200% of their GDP. Your points about the acceleration of debt is a problem, but you do not account for changing circumstances. A very large portion of the increase in debt is due to the war in the middle east, and the recession. The war on terror has cost $1.3 trillion in Iraq and Afghanistan alone. That cost is drastically reduced with the complete withdrawal of troops from Iraq, and decreasing levels in Afghanistan. (By the way, that is not military spending over those years, it is money spent specifically on the war on terror and does not include domestic upkeep, aid packages, etc.) The second major cost in that period is the recession. The 2008 bailout alone cost $700 billion with $150 billion in added corollaries introduced in congress. Hundreds of billions more have been spent on stimulus packages, and other economic band aids. So we can see that rather than being a continuing exponential increase in debt, the numbers you provided in fact represent a peak . The number we need to really worry about is not in dollars but in percents. If America incurred another hundred billion in debt, we'd barely feel it. But if say Nepal incurred a hundred billion dollars of debt, they would be completely devastated. Where it is now, the debt as a percent of GDP is sustainable, and according to http://www.supportingevidence.com... is projected to level out in coming years and then decline to lower, more normal levels. Another problem with a BBA is that it makes long term spending difficult. Congress would have to account for future scenarios in determining spending projects. If they guess the GDP would be higher than it ends up being, there would be a budget shortfall that could result in painful cuts to programs we need because we cannot support them at the time, even if it just for a year. So, to reiterate my points, imposing a BBA would act detrimentally to Congress' ability to function, it is unnecessary because the current and projected debt exists at sustainable levels, and that it would cause complications in long term budgets plans. It is for these reasons that we can plainly see a BBA is not viable, recommendable, or desirable.