Balanced Budget Amendment

As another war on the debt limit is looming over us and the fiscal cliff just barely passed over us, we need some serious thoughts on ways to reduce the deficit. One of my proposals is a Balanced Budget Amendment. Pro 1: The BBA Addresses Chronic Deficit For the past several years, the United States has been running deficits upwards of $1 trillion or more and there is no end in sight. We are in a period of chronic deficit and it is deficit that we can no longer sustain. As John Adams said, “There are two ways to conquer and enslave a country. One is by the sword. The other is by debt. ” [1] These words reign true to this day as we are seeing what is happening in the European Debt Crisis. Figure 1-1 shows how bad the debt has become. . http://www.whitehouse.gov... (accessed August 8, 2012), and Congressional Budget Office, An Update to the Budget and Economic Outlook: Fiscal Years 2012 to 2022, Alternative Fiscal Scenario, August 22, 2012, . http://cbo.gov... (accessed August 23, 2012). " /> Figure 1-1: A table comparing the recent deficits. [2] So, let’s put this into a different perspective. What if the average income family spent like the federal government? Figure 2-1 shows what the consequences would be of such a family. Figure 2-1 The data from this graph is from 2010 where the median income family was $51,360.00. If a typical family followed the government’s lead, it would therefore spend 30 cents of every dollar on credit card. This means that the family would have racked up $325,781 in credit card debt – a total equivalent to that of an entire mortgage, only without the house. Who would allow such a family to continue borrowing from them? [3] If such spending is not right for a typical family – what then justifies the federal government to spend in such a manner? What is the main cause of this problem? It isn’t that we don’t have enough revenue – we simply have too much spending. Figure 3-1 shows the revenue to spending relationships Figure 3-1 [4] As we can see from the above graph, the deficit is government spending – not low revenue. In fact, revenue will surpass the historical average by 2018, spending will still remain even well above that, even after the $2.1 trillion in cuts under the Budget Control Act of 2011. So, why is the BBA appropriate for this chronic deficit problem? Because it addresses the real problem, which is overspending by the government. Pro 2: Flaw in Democracy One of the great flaws in democracy was noted by Edmund Burke in 1754 (emphasis added) [5]: A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largess from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The BBA is one way to fix the flaw in democracy because it limits the amount of money that can come from the public treasure. Conclusion The United States should adopt and pass a BBA because it immediately addresses our chronic deficit and spending problems which threaten economic viability of our nation. Secondly, a BBA is appropriate because it fixes the flaws in a democracy by limiting the amount of money that can be taken from the public treasury. [1] . http://www.goodreads.com... [2] Courtesy of . http://www.heritage.org... [3] Image and caption provided by . http://www.heritage.org... [4] Image 3-1 is courtesy of . http://www.heritage.org... [5] Quoted in . http://www.debate.org...