Balanced Budget Amendment

Hi. First off, don't fear ad hominem from me, I'm quite docile. This is also my first debate, so even though it is irrational for me to ask you to let me win or go really easy on me, please don't attack the mistakes I make in formatting my arguments, etc. Obviously you may attack any mistakes in my case though, so here goes... To begin, I completely agree something needs to be done. The debt is spiraling out of control faster and faster. However, restricting the president's power is the last thing we need to do. Excepting rare instances, even rarer recently, congress tends not to react very quickly or together. Last fall, as the United States approached the preset debt ceiling, it took congress until the day before the deadline (I think, doing this part from memory) to raise the ceiling. If they had stalled just a little longer, they could have literally sent the world's economy into a downward spiral, and as it was their deliberation was listed by Standard and Poor's as one of the reasons for the credit downgrade from AAA to AA+. As the world's largest economy by far, the United States has a responsibility not only to its citizens as every country does, but to the entire world. With today's globalization, economies of all nations are intertwined as never before. Not long ago, Greece running broke would have made the .01% of Americans who invested in it lose money, but it wouldn't be America's problem. Now, their debt crisis has sent shock waves through Wall Street and inducing panic over Europe's future. Greece is a country with a GDP roughly 2% of America's. If their collapse can accomplish what it did, how horrible would the results of an American default be? Yet even in the face of disaster, congress procrastinated until the very last minute. Several politicians, mainly tea party members, used this opportunity to blackmail the other members of congress into agreeing to some of their terms. This goes to show that Congress is incapable of 1) reaching a decision in a timely and efficient manner, and 2) reached a unified decision that directly attacks the problem. All congress did with the debt ceiling was move it away. If either party had gotten their way, more money would have been cut from the deficit: Republicans through spending cuts, and Democrats through lesser cuts and slightly higher taxes. As it was, approximately $4 trillion would have been saved over the next decade with either plan, but divisions within congress created a compromise that kept only some spending cuts and eliminated the Democrats' tax increase, roughly halving the amount saved. If we give congress more power to regulate spending, then we will wind up with ill timed poorly effective compromises like in August. The second problem I see is that your plan allocates for no scenarios but war. This is flawed because other emergencies exist. If another economic crisis as in 2008 arises, congress will likely not be able to act quickly enough to prevent it. Whereas in congress, a lack of majority can derail a bill in one house, and conflicting majorities between senate and the house of representatives can stop nearly all decision making, the president has loyalties to only one party. We need to move towards the system of government and ideas of founding fathers like Alexander Hamilton, whose views have been largely ignored. The president is the most important tool for getting things done efficiently. Even with his limited power and facing opposing majorities in congress, and a poor economy, Obama has kept or is working on 2/3 of his campaign promises, and achieved a compromise on another 10%, with only 12% not kept or working on. So we can see that congress is incapable of creating effective, efficient bills, and that the president is the greatest force for getting things done, it should be the logical choice not to restrict his (or maybe at some point her) power, but instead increase it to give America a powerful leader who can get things done. (Retaining of course provisions of the constitution allowing the people to vote the president out of office to avoid tyranny)