Balanced Budget Amendment

First Point:I still do not understand your argument. I am saying that there is nothing wrong with imposing strict limits on Congress's spending. Budgets are not a deadline. Perhaps it would be better if we put up the definition of a budget. budget - An estimate of income and expenditure for a set period of time. [1] An estimate of income and expenditure over a set period of time. Sounds reasonable to me. In this case the set period of time would be one year and the income would be total tax revenue from the previous year with the expenditure being the money spent on government programs. I don't see the idea of a deadline anywhere in this definition. There is nothing wrong with asking Congress to spend as much as it takes in. You are adamantly fighting this idea. Second Point: Let me rephrase, I am sorry for the confusion. I understand that no one is loaning us $5 trillion dollars but my point still stands. Who wants to loan anyone any money when they are so far in debt? And the only reason we are paying off the debt "responsibly" is because we keep borrowing more money to make our debt payments! We are asking for another 1.2 trillion dollar increase to the debt ceiling. [2] Certainly we will be "paying off our debt" while in the process of borrowing more money. A BBA would solve this problem can't you see? Without the problem of continuously adding to our debt through deficits we will be able to actually start paying off our debt "responsibly" because right now its not responsible. It might be being paid but at the expense of continuous borrowing. Third Point:First I do not appreciate your low shot at the Tea Party because we have had a spending problem throughout the entire last century. Attacking a single group in this won't solve anything. There was no proposed plan for cutting the debt. Taxes would have helped lessen the deficit and nothing more. The debt has to be paid down consistently over time without incurring any more of it to be successful. The Democrats offered a similar deal to Reagan in the 80's, x in tax raises for y in tax cuts but the cuts never came. So don't attack the Tea Party for an ongoing and deep seated problem. Once again I don't understand how a BBA "cripples" Congress. Up until recently Congress ran under a balanced budget just fine. You seem to think that cutting programs will "cripple" Congress which is simply not true. Also, once again you claim that it's okay to have debt by citing a place with tremendous debt but still functions. Debt is not good. You said so yourself. So why keep allowing an institution run under crippling debts and deficits when you can cap and limit that practice? Stop defending debt. "Instead of reducing the ways the government helps people, we could achieve an even greater effect by increasing how much citizens help their government by eliminating the Bush Tax cuts which cost us more than any stimulus package"This statement is so flawed I don't know where to begin.What happened to "Ask not what the country can do for you but instead ask what you can do for your country?" and no JFK was not talking about paying more taxes. The government does not truly help anyone. They vote buy plain and simple. The government doesn't know who you are or what your problems are and most importantly they don't care. So don't get preachy.Bush Tax Cuts:A classic democratic attack. But here are the facts. Under George W. Bush’s “tax cuts for the rich” the rich paid more in taxes in 2005 than any time in the prior 20 years. In fact, as the Wall Street Journal noted, thanks to George W. Bush’s tax cuts for the rich, the richest one percent went from paying 25% of all income taxes in 1990 to 39% in 2005. The richest 5% went from paying 44% of all income taxes in 1990 to paying 60% of all income taxes in 2005. In 1980, when the top income tax rate was 70%, the richest 1% paid only 19% of all income taxes; now, with a top rate of 35%, they pay more than double that share. More crucially, after the 2001 initial tax cuts, the annual growth rate went from 0.3% in 2001 to 2.5% in 2002. By 2004, GDP growth was the highest in 20 years. [3][4] AS you can see the Bush Tax Cuts cost us nothing, in fact they helped bring in massively more revenue than higher taxes did in 1980. In fact if the tax cuts were so bad why did President Obama extend them?You say obviously there are other solutions (to the financial problem I'm assuming). So I beg of you, please present some. Until then, I will stick to defending the premise of a balanced budget amendment. The government can function on a balanced budget and if the system was working there would be no need for me to suggest this but something isn't working so why not make it work?Live within your means.Think.BBA. [1] Google Definitions[2] http://www.foxnews.com...[3] http://www.redstate.com...[4] http://www.ncpa.org...